New Combat for a New Year
New Combat is coming Jan 19 2024
There is an adage in video games “Games are late once, but bad forever.” We started on NEW Combat in March. Recently, we were pushing hard to get it done before Christmas. For you! For us! Especially the guys who have been on it for 9 months. But we just can’t build, test, tune, and release it in that time. After all this time and waiting I sense it has to be good! So we’re giving ourselves enough time to hopefully get it right and not kill ourselves over Christmas.
With that out of the way, let's jump into a quick overview of some of the things that is coming with the new Combat Update!
We’ve rebuilt every spell from the ground up with a new paradigm, system and UX. Combat now asks a multitude of interesting questions for which there are many possible choices.
Five Full Schools of magic for a total of 30 New Spells – Each school has been rebuilt from the ground up to have it's own identity and flavor. Preexisting spells have been remade new. When and which spell to cast matters! Each school of roughly 6 spells is equally valid and valuable. Play your mage fantasy however you want.
Magic Research & Progression System – This whole new system uses XP gained from combat, research, and experimentation to unlock new spells.
We will be sharing more details of each spell school over the coming weeks leading up to launch.
We’ve completely revised our four existing races: Spiders, Wolves, Skeletons, and Goblins. Now we are happy to introduce a new race: Crocodons. Burrowed deep beneath the earth, the crocodons have hibernated some 2,000 years. As temperatures approach those of the years before the Frost, the crocodons stir from their long slumber…
Maintaining your hero's progress is super important to us. Yet, we completely redid equipment. What to do? Our solution is to refund the gold value of any existing equipment you have, teleport you to the starter town, and allow you to buy new equipment from the shops. The old equipment doesn't easily translate to the new unfortunately.
Also, because of how world generation works, crocodons will only appear in new games, not existing save games.
We will maintain the latest build before Combat releases as a new Legacy branch for those of you who might not be ready to make the switch yet.
That's what we're sharing for now, but we'll release more details as we get closer to release.
Phil (Community Manager) and Mark (Combat Lead Designer) will be recording a Q&A / AMA about combat. Post your questions here and we’ll answer them in the video!
It has to be Good
There is an adage in video games “Games are late once, but bad forever.” We started on NEW Combat in March. Recently, we were pushing hard to get it done before Christmas. For you! For us! Especially the guys who have been on it for 9 months. But we just can’t build, test, tune, and release it in that time. After all this time and waiting I sense it has to be good! So we’re giving ourselves enough time to hopefully get it right and not kill ourselves over Christmas.
With that out of the way, let's jump into a quick overview of some of the things that is coming with the new Combat Update!
Interesting, Thoughtful, Strategic Combat
We’ve rebuilt every spell from the ground up with a new paradigm, system and UX. Combat now asks a multitude of interesting questions for which there are many possible choices.
Five Full Schools of magic for a total of 30 New Spells – Each school has been rebuilt from the ground up to have it's own identity and flavor. Preexisting spells have been remade new. When and which spell to cast matters! Each school of roughly 6 spells is equally valid and valuable. Play your mage fantasy however you want.
Magic Research & Progression System – This whole new system uses XP gained from combat, research, and experimentation to unlock new spells.
We will be sharing more details of each spell school over the coming weeks leading up to launch.
New Mechanics
- Ara - Adjustments to the Ara pool system, including managing your Ara (Mana) resource across turns. Unused Ara now carries over across turns.
- Action Points - increase by 1 per round (like Hearthstone) up to 8, opening up more options latter in battle
- Armor - We removed the two kinds of armor (physical and magical) from monsters, now enemies just have HP and resistances
Enemies
We’ve completely revised our four existing races: Spiders, Wolves, Skeletons, and Goblins. Now we are happy to introduce a new race: Crocodons. Burrowed deep beneath the earth, the crocodons have hibernated some 2,000 years. As temperatures approach those of the years before the Frost, the crocodons stir from their long slumber…
Save Files
Maintaining your hero's progress is super important to us. Yet, we completely redid equipment. What to do? Our solution is to refund the gold value of any existing equipment you have, teleport you to the starter town, and allow you to buy new equipment from the shops. The old equipment doesn't easily translate to the new unfortunately.
Also, because of how world generation works, crocodons will only appear in new games, not existing save games.
We will maintain the latest build before Combat releases as a new Legacy branch for those of you who might not be ready to make the switch yet.
That's what we're sharing for now, but we'll release more details as we get closer to release.
What Questions Do You Have?
Phil (Community Manager) and Mark (Combat Lead Designer) will be recording a Q&A / AMA about combat. Post your questions here and we’ll answer them in the video!