Barony News

As we work toward our final release of the Quality of Death update, we're fixing some persistent performance issues and bugs that we don't want to ship with. In the meantime, we continue to add polish, quality-of-life improvements, and content. It's time to give you a new and improved build with a lot of our work from the last couple months!

A big THANK YOU to everybody who has participated in these Quality of Death Beta tests. We appreciate your ongoing support and feedback. It's really helped make the game better.

For those who play on big monitors, I want to draw your attention to the new HUD Scaling slider.
We've received feedback that some of our veterans prefer the old UI because it feels less cluttered. At 1920x1080, I personally recommend playing with the new UI at 75% HUD scale, giving all those UI elements a lot more breathing room. At 4k, 50% HUD scale might be the right choice if you have a huge screen and can read the tiny text!
When I play the QoD Beta on my Steam Deck, I'm grateful the 100% size is as large as it is; it's great to have options! We know we can't please everyone, but we're doing our best.
Thanks to everyone for hanging with us throughout this process of transformation.

[h3]Hell[/h3]
Reworked Hell to be a more threatening and distinct tileset, in gameplay and aesthetic.

• Added several new natural and architectural meshes to make Hell look more rad
  
• Added new, and reworked existing hell textures to provide a more varied and consistent palette
  
• Improved the lava bubble particle's look
  
• Added a 3-tile skirt to the exterior of Hell levels to help facilitate its look as an outdoor location
  
• Set Hell to operate with the room-adjacency generation method
  
• Reworked all existing rooms to fit in the multiples-of-seven size required by the generation method
  
• Added a full complement of ~180 total room variants to Hell
  
• Demon model is now slightly smaller to fit in 1 tile ceilings
  
• Demons no longer break ceilings [to keep Hell looking pretty]
  
• Arrow traps no longer spawn procedurally in Hell
  
• Added high-threat traps to Hell rooms
  

[h3]Goatman[/h3]

• Booze lasts 2.5-3.5 minutes rather than 30-60s for Goatmen
  
• Drunk status is no longer cured by Cure Ailment (Goatman only)
  
• Succubi and Incubi are now also recruitable by throwing booze while drunk, in addition to humans + goblins
  
• Fountain potion drop chances improved, chance of 2 potions 20 -> 30%, chance of 0 potions 30 -> 20%
  

While Drunk, Goatman gains:

• 20%+ to all resistances
  
• Free Action status (immunity to mobility impairing effects)
  
• +25% STR/CON/CHR (or +4, whichever greater)
  
• -25% DEX (or -2, whichever most negative)
  
• -25% INT (or -8, whichever most negative)
  

[h3]Polish Work[/h3]

• Many splitscreen layout adjustments
  
• Resize GUI slider added to settings, shrink the drawn size of UI (recommended values 75% or 50% for pixel art accuracy)

Screenshot of the game set to 1920x1080 with the HUD scaled to 75%

• New FPS mode - AUTO when slider maxed to attempt to match monitor settings
  
• Added status effect icons + tooltips for all item intrinsic effects (e.g Warning, Conflict, Waterwalking)
  
• Added new level up fanfare with numerical stat increases shown
  
• Added new skill up notifications
  
• Added new spell learned notifications
  
• Added "Notifications" audio slider to adjust level up/skill increase/new spell volume
  
• Inventory tooltips scroll with right stick/mouse wheel when expanded (video). Now shouldn't overflow the screen and are kept within maximum height ranges (roughly inventory + backpack size)
  
• Reworked on-screen messages, many basic messages are now filtered out ("you hit the skeleton!") to focus on important events
  
• (All filtered messages will show in the log window (hotkey L) or Open Log on the character sheet)
  
• Messages now display in the center by default
  

  Log HUD placement can be changed using console commands (for now):
  /alignmessages left, /alignmessages center, /alignmessages top

• XP bars now include current character level and class
  
• XP bars, chat messages, nametags are now colored per-player to match the minimap colors
  
• Player nametags now draw through walls like enemy HP bars
  
• Added unique MP bars for Automaton and Insectoids
  
• MP bars now flash when attempting to cast a spell without the appropriate MP
  
• Added "Next Interaction" prompt to inform when you can use "Cycle Interation" (default R) to swap the targeted item
  
• Added new directional damage indicator art to match pixel art style and increase visibility
  
• Blocked damage now also has a directional indicator
  
• Directional damage indicators now correctly scale to the screen
  
• Last characters are reloaded when entering new games - separate characters saved for LAN/Online/Splitscreen
  
• Newly added spells blink the Spells menu button until scrolled over
  
• Hotbar tooltips are now small compact labels when scrolling through
  
• Removed "Minimap scaling" hotkey, now minimap is drawn bigger by default. Use "Expand Minimap" hotkey to see larger view in middle of screen.
  
• Added negative sound feedback when failing to do inventory actions (item is cursed and unequippable, no room in chest, can't learn spell etc)
  
• Gamepad item tooltips now have a smaller grab/drop icon rather than text
  
• Many optimisations drawing player UI and drawing the world
  

[h3]Gameplay[/h3]

• Multiplayer EXP sharing is now global range
  
• Added Death Boxes - Dying in multiplayer now drops all your items in a new "Death Box" item, containing all of your equipment (only when Keep Inventory gameflag is turned off)
  
• Death Boxes are player color-coded, and can be inspected to determine how many items it contains
  
• Opening the box delivers all the items into your inventory, and destroys the container
  
• Death Boxes have a weight of 100, and reduce your speed by 20% per box carried
  
• Bones icon shows on map if a death box is on the floor
  
• Bones show on map for 10 seconds when someone dies with keep inventory on
  
• You can now see your inventory when dead in multiplayer, and will spawn without items on the next floor
  
• Multiplayer high scores that are recorded while dead now show the character with equipped gear
  
• All minions with the Interact or Attack command should now be able to touch underworld shrines
  
• Interacting with an exit will send a message and ping other players the location
  
• Appraising is only possible if your skill/PER is high enough for the item, auto-appraise will check before trying
  
• Appraising an item no longer has a chance to fail
  
• Gems and worthless glass now have matching weight/gold value when unidentified
  
• Axe weapons now deal bonus damage to furniture/doors/chests like Unarmed skill (+1 per 20 skill points)
  
• Unarmed no longer deals bonus damage to chests, limited to furniture/doors
  
• "Critical hits" on furniture now properly doubles your damage instead of adding a +1 to the final amount
  
• Items now bob/float in water, and sink/burn in lava
  
• Charisma stat no longer affects item buying prices from shops as items could reach buy/sell 1:1 ratios early with minimal Trading skill (only Trading skill affects this, selling items uses Trading + CHR stat still)
  
• Potion of Strength now increases STR by +25% (or +5, whichever greater), PER -50% (or -5, whichever most negative)
  
• Vampiric Aura (when learned from spellbook) now increases STR by +25% (or +5, whichever greater) and gives DEX +5 + 25%
  
• Entering Hamlet clears all Wanted! status effects from all player forms
  
• Tinkering kit default right-click action is Tinker
  
• Drunk hiccup effect longer intervals, 3 -> 6 seconds
  
• Music volume reduced to better suit other sound effects when set to the same percentage
  
• Spells of Dominate and Charm Monster clear Confuse status when successfully making new friends
  
• Every player now receives their own story sequences based on their race rather than using the host's race
  
• Healing spells/potions now show +HP sprites in-world when used on allies
  

[h3]Auto Hotbar Adjustments[/h3]
Default settings for auto-add-to-Hotbar behavior have been reset to Thrown, Spells and Tools. These may still be manually adjusted in the Inventory Sorting > Customize menu.

• Unidentified items are no longer added to hotbar automatically
  
• Broken items will remove themselves from the hotbar, provided they were on the hotbar before breaking
  
• Thrown category now includes returning consumables such as tinkering tools/beartraps/quivers
  
• Items in the "Thrown" category now remember what slot they were assigned to when thrown / deployed, so that when you pick it back up, it returns to the correct spot on your Hotbar if that slot has not been overridden in the meantime
  
• Tool category now includes only a few items: Empty bottles, Orbs, Lockpicks, Lanterns, Torches, Crystal Shards
  
• Lore books removed from the Books inventory category for Auto-Add-to-Hotbar
  
  

[h3]Multiplayer Lobbies[/h3]

• Lobbies are now private by default, requiring a room code or Steam Invite
  
• Continuing a saved multiplayer game is public by default
  
• Improved connecting to lobbies with clearer error messages
  
• You can connect to a hosted multiplayer game from either the Continue or New game prompt, selecting a lobby to join will automatically find your compatible save file, if it exists
  
• ^ Also applies to Steam Invites and when using room codes
  
• Accepting Steam Invites while already in a game properly connects you to the lobby instead of only taking you to the main menu
  
• Spidercrab bug fixed, lobby and chat will announce if the game has turned on the setting (if any client has arachnophobia on = on for everyone)
  

[h3]Editor[/h3]

• Added now "Collider" decor sprite type, to place custom art objects in maps with configurable collision
  
• Added "Gen Border" property, allowing maps to have a custom specifiable, impenetrable border as defined by the level designer, where generated rooms do not override the border area
  

[h3]Performance[/h3]

• Added vismap to all cameras rather than map so culling particles works in splitscreen

[h3]Bugfixes[/h3]

• Fixed Succubus/Insectoid followers getting stuck constantly casting their signature spells
  
• Fixed camera shake not having a sensible limit
  
• Fixed loud volume when dropping a stack of items, only produces 1 sound per game tick
  
• Fixed Interact Aim Assist resetting to the first interactable in the list when picking up items, now properly remembers the item you looked at previous
  
• Fixed Interact Aim Assist not allowing cycling between items when scrapping items by blocking with a Tinkering kit
  
• Fixed clients not gaining Tinkering skill when salvaging using the tinkering kit in-world (bug ever since we first put in splitscreen - oops)
  
• Fixed tinkering UI not displaying correct repair cost for very blessed items (the cap is 99 but UI would incorrectly exceed that)
  
• Fixed Confuse spell working on bosses
  
• Fixed side-by-side doors not opening correctly
  
• Fixed "use" binding triggering while text chatting if it was bound to a keyboard button
  
• Fixed right clicks not resetting during level change, potentially interacting with objects across the map
  
• Fixed minimap pings requiring 2 clicks when first opening the map
  
• Fixed desync in multiplayer when unequipping an item while having a full inventory
  
• Fixed item in-world tooltips not showing Broken status correctly
  
• Fixed Parashu crit applying when Shapeshifted
  
• Fixed being able to Polymorph allies into Shadows
  
• Fixed Blood Vessels achievement not working
  
• Fixed Secret Weapon achievement not working for all classes
  
• Fixed Gyrobot being able to deploy broken Tinker bots
  
• Fixed telepathy working on the main menu when viewing hiscores
  
• Fixed duping mail/readable books when taking items out of chest in multiplayer
  
• Fixed repairing Tinker bots while equipped causing them to disappear
  
• Fixed duplicate Minotaur roars in splitscreen
  
• Fixed splitscreen individual log windows displaying messages for every player
  
• Fixed gaining Stealth skill increases when attacking other player from behind
  
• Fixed Aesthetic monster skins not playing the Human story sequences
  
• Fixed Acid spell not awarding XP when the lingering poison status effect deals the final blow
  
• Fixed joining multiplayer games as client overriding your default game flag options in solo play
  
• Fixed game flags desyncing in multiplayer when restarting the game
  
• Fixed client cycle next not working when bound to follower command
  
• Fixed blindfolds being stackable
  

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
We're very pleased to announce that the Gyrobot Plush is now available to purchase from Makeship!

Here's how it works!

• We at Turning Wheel LLC worked with the Makeship design team to make a unique Barony plush we thought you would love!
  
• Makeship made prototypes of the Gyrobot until we were all happy with the design.
  
• They go on sale! >>THAT'S NOW!<<
• Enough of them sell, and they go into production, and they'll ship it right to you!
  
• Turning Wheel gets a cut of the sales and adds that to our development budget! If MORE sell, we get a bigger percentage.
  

How cool is that? We're excited to be working with Makeship to bring a piece of Barony into the real world.

[h3]In case you missed the link, follow the link to buy your very own!:
Buy Your GYROBOT PLUSH at Makeship[/h3]
https://www.makeship.com/products/gyrobot-plush

⚙️

GYROBOT PLUSHIE GIVEAWAY

⚙️
[h2]Behold, the Gyrobot![/h2]
We worked closely with Makeship to bring Barony's own dungeon assistant to life as authentically as possible in plush form, and we're giving away one of these cuties.

[h2]To enter the giveaway:[/h2]
⚙️Follow @Turning_Wheel and @Makeship on Twitter.

⚙️Like & Retweet the Tweet linked below!
Giveaway ends Wednesday the 26th at 11:59pm EST

https://twitter.com/Turning_Wheel/status/1617596062130372608?s=20&t=zarf4hmrQT3iXQXGeVVtTA

Back in May, we asked our Discord community which Barony character they'd want to buy as a plushie. We gathered the results and found that those goofballs picked "Rat". So instead of making a generic stuffed rat, we worked with Makeship to create their 2nd place pick, Barony's iconic and charming Gyrobot!


Starting on January 26th you'll have the chance to obtain your very own LIMITED EDITION Gyrobot plushie. We'll post again here on Steam so you're sure not to miss out.

If we sell enough, the life-size Gyrobot will become a real thing and a share of the profits will go to Turning Wheel's game development fund. If we sell a LOT of them, we'll get an even bigger cut, and the likelihood we'll get to make MORE plushies will go *way up*. Maybe a Gnome next time?

We're super excited about this plushie!
The most unique piece of Barony merch ever; all the cool kids will be crawling out of the woodwork asking you "Wait is that a Gyrobot from hit co-op action RPG Barony?" and you'll say "You bet your sweet sentries, it is!" Bam, instant best friends to go dungeon delving with.

Put one in your car! Hang one from your ceiling fan! Think of all your friends and family, and how much better their lives would be with a Gyrobot in it. A great gift for the dungeon nerds in your life.
This gyrobot stuffy is cute as heck. We'll show you more when the plushie sales campaign officially begins. For now, enjoy the teaser image.

The QoD Beta has been going extremely well, and we've got release candidates in the oven. It's coming along very well and we'll have news about Ship dates available for you soon.

As we work toward release, the amount of new features we're adding, and the severity of the remaining fixes become lower. Aside from the fixes discussed here, in the background we're working on some other issues we need to deal with, including some performance and split-screen improvements that must be done prior to ship.
You may continue to see other content improvements along with these fixes and performance updates since not everybody on the team works on the same stuff!

BIG THANKS to everyone who has played these betas and has offered feedback. It really helps.
You may've noticed, the game is on sale right now! Barony is a great gift, especially when you want to play Barony with somebody in your life!

Also celebrate the holidays with our own Barony Christmas Steam avatar frame!

In case this is the first news post you're reading about the Quality of Death public beta, it's easy to opt in:
- Go to Barony in your Library
- Go to the game's Properties (in Steam)
- Activate the Quality of Death Beta build in the Betas tab)
Several of the most common kinds of crashes and softlocks have been fixed. Some level generation and design features have been done to pave the way for future content adds. Quality of life issues that plague new players remain a high priority for us to address, so we've done some work there,

[h2]Beta Changelog - (V3.8.6)[/h2]

• The game version has been updated from V3.8.5 to V3.8.6.

[h3]Level Improvements[/h3]

• Generated map rooms will now respect the "Disable Traps" checkbox within the Map Properties
  
• Added a new sprite for decor meshes that can have collision properties
  
• Added a map perimeter value to the map properties that is not overridden by generated rooms
  
• Turned off generated traps in rooms that had potential to cause softlocks and disrupt triggers
  
• Boulder Traps no longer spawn in the Underworld since they could cause many new softlocks and unwelcome teleportation beacon surprises
  
• Underworld teleporter beacons will now try their best to not put you on a randomly generated spike trap
  
• Minor rework of the Mystic Library secret level
  
• Added an item to the Haunted Castle secret level
  
• General bugfixing and minor improvements to many generated map rooms
  
• Generated room doors placed close to walls now only delete wall tiles in the direction they're facing
  

[h3]Quality of Life[/h3]

• Improved Gyrobot's "Return & Land" behavior
  
• Allowed deploying of Gyrobots on non-walkable floor tiles
  
• Infighting between NPCs who are friendly to each other is now reduced
  
• Added new default hotbar layouts for every race / class combination which includes racial spells

  NOTE, if you have saved your own custom hotbar with '/saveclasshotbar`, you may not see these new defaults and you can delete the `class_hotbars.JSON` in the `Barony/config` directory if you wish to revert to the defaults.

• Spells no longer state they are Learnable in their tooltip if the player is a Goblin
  
• Skeletons can now no longer become oversatiated by drinking from sinks
  
• Improved in-game Log font for attractiveness, better readability and more visible lines on-screen
  
• Added both X and Y axis inversion for gamepad thumbsticks
  
• Video settings have been rearranged to put more commonly accessed options first
  
• Transition floors now have a reduced hunger rate. Take that bio break!

[h3]Crash and Softlock Bugfixes[/h3]

• Herx's orb is now moved to the center of the map if it would be inaccessible on a pit
  
• The cutscene fire effect was causing crashes for some players and has been temporarily removed
  
• Fixed crash that occurred when moving amulets in the inventory
  
• Fixed extremely small generated maps not having an exit by deleting a wall and allowing the exit to be placed somewhere accessible beyond

[h3]General Bugfixes[/h3]

• Boulder traps are now deleted if the ceiling is destroyed
  
• Fixed issue with Steam invites when continuing multiplayer games not working
  
• Fixed issue loading old saves wiping character progress
  
• "Wanted!" status effect no longer triggers on a follower attacking a shopkeep (but will trigger if follower has killed a shopkeep)
  
• "Wanted!" status effect no longer checks if other players are inside a "shop tile", and instead only uses line of sight check when searching for other players to incriminate (fixes an issue in minetown when you could be Wanted! inside an unrelated shop)
  
• Vials of blood now drop for monsters killed by ranged/magic (was only melee/bloodletting spell previously)
  
• Whip now can increase Ranged skill (Goblins do not roll to increase all melee skills when this occurs)
  
• Beartraps no longer increase Ranged skill (Still provides 10% chance to level Tinkering)
  

Thanks for reading!