The Hand of Merlin News

General fixes:
• Fixed a crash when opening the in-game Options menu on macOS.
• Fixed an issue in the final boss fight which would cause the script to break (and the boss would never spawn) if player killed a Pylon in a certain way.
• Added a check to the lobby that automatically unlocks any heroes that are not unlocked in the profile, but should because they don't have any unlock requirements. This is notable for mods adding new Heroes.
• Added a fixup for Atlantes' core achievement for players who unlocked the core before the achievement was added.
• Fixed a rare occurrence which could block progress in Roncevaux Pass, making it impossible to progress into Al-Andalus.
• Fixed a bug where locked relics (rewarded for completing the game) could appear in encounters/relic shops before being unlocked.
• Fixed Canoel random encounter with the Thief: they should now properly steal a static amount of gold every time, and return it if caught.
• Fixed Keen status effect (granted by Breunor's passive) to properly expire at turn end.
• Fixed a bug where the self-buff part of Warrior's Taunt skill (Blocking) could sometimes miss.
• Fixed a bug with Grail of Piety relic where its extra healing effect would also erroneously reduce CDs by 1.
• Fixed an issue preventing Thorns status effect from reflecting any damage.
• Fixed an issue preventing different variations of Roland's Horn relic from spawning.
• Fixed an issue where Cockatrice's abilities were not affected by cover.
• Fixed a bug where status effects (and their visuals) could in rare occasions be applied to units that just died.
• Fixed multiple skills which you could not use at 0 AP despite them costing 0 AP.
• Added green and red diamond markers to tier 3 skill upgrades where they were missing.
• Updated Cockatrice's Wingslam VFX to better fit the ability's logical hitbox.
• Added several sound effects which were missing on certain enemies.
• Updated various hint images to display the latest UI.
• Updated descriptions of various relics and skills to clarify them.
• Fixed a rare bug where the grid outline in combat was sometimes flashing or was not rendered properly.
• Fixed missing footstep sounds on a certain skirmish map.
• Various minor visual fixes across several levels.

Quality of life changes:
• Improved the automatic camera tracking logic. The camera movements should feel smoother and far less janky now.
• The rankup notification can now be shown even while the Journal is open (i.e. the player is in an encounter), which should help players not miss their rankup opportunities.

Gameplay balancing:
• Attribute rewards at rankup have been adjusted. The choice is now between +2 Health or +1 Armor, but every four levels there will be a third choice for a random attribute.

This post was written by Will, our VFX artist.

Hi everyone.

In The Hand of Merlin there are a great number of status effects, (over 200 in fact) which grant the player various different boons and banes that players will have to manage to effectively beat the evil monstrosities they are presented with. The task of visually representing these needed to be broken down so that players could quickly and effectively see what type of status currently affects the units on the skirmish map.

The gameplay implications needed to be represented were decided as follows;


Status effect VFX categories

Buffs:

1. Increased damage dealt
   
2. Reduced damage taken
   
3. Increased speed, evasion, accuracy or AP gain
   
4. Healing over time
   

Debuffs:

1. Reduced damage dealt
   
2. Increased damage taken
   
3. Decreased speed, evasion, accuracy or AP gain
   
4. Damage over time (burning / poisoned / bleeding)
   
5. Immobilized (unable to move)
   
6. Incapacitated (unable to take any action, stunned)
   

So I designed some quick concept sketches which the team helped me to refine. Then it was time to test and check them in the engine.



This is how they all look overlapping and while there's a lot going on it's much more readable than it was.


We here at Room-C hope this will make the game easier to play and make it more obvious that a status effect is affecting a unit and indicate its type.
You can share your opinions with us on our Discord server!

Will

New features:
• Updated the VFX for most status effects, which should be now be more intuitive and readable even with multiple effects stacked.

General fixes:
• Fixed an issue on certain Mac and Linux machines causing a "GPU not recognized" error message at game start.
• Fixed an issue where Hero Prowess unlocks did not work when defeating the final boss.
• Fixed an issue in the final boss fight where Mana would not be restored via the Holy Grail if killing a unit on the same turn it was spawned on.
• Fixed an issue where Dire Toad's Bristleback ability could trigger repeatedly off of reflected damage (such as Thorns).
• Fixed an issue where the choice cards for Ranger's Explosive Arrow skill upgrades showed the same text.
• Fixed a bug in the encounter "A Day for Jousting", where points were awarded incorrectly in the case of one broken lance.

Quality of life changes:
• The "essence available" notification on the world map now pops up and animates only if you had no essence before gaining one. If you start the map state with one or more, it is still present, just not animated across the screen.

Optimizations:
• Reduced clutter on several maps, which does not affect visuals but improves performance and reduces memory usage.

Gameplay balancing:
• Replaced Ranger's Specialty Arrow skill upgrade which was overlapping with the new Exploding Arrow skill with a new upgrade - Stunned Arrow, which applies a stun to the target.
• The status effect Timed Bomb applied via Ranger's Explosive Arrow skill can now be detonated prematurely by killing the affected target.
• Mystic's Noxious Fumes skill is buffed: increased max charges from 2 to 3, and it no longer affects allies.
• Tendril Whip relic now has a 60-degree cone area of effect instead of a line.

Hey folks!

On Monday we released our long awaited Content Update 7!

Along with a bunch of fixes, changes and improvements, it also marks the release of our Editor to the general public. That’s right, you can now play the game in a modded environment and create your own mods or install mods others make!

We have prepared several modding guides to help anyone wanting to try making their own. These span making new abilities, relics, encounters, maps, units, etc.

The guides are now all up!
Abilities guide! Units guide! AI guide! Auras and ground effects guide! Status effects guide! Equipment guide! Relics guide! Skirmish maps! Encounters!

Due to how the game is set up, some things are simpler to mod than others.
Relics, skills and (by extension) status effects are for the most part a “drop in and it works” resource. They automatically integrate with their respective systems.
Encounters, zones and skirmish maps are, to some degree, mutually dependent on each other. Zones require some number of encounters to work, and encounters that have a fight need to specify the skirmish map where the fight is, and each fight needs input from the encounter (if set up for it) on where to spawn enemies.

The guides will go into more detail on each aspect of modding if you’re interested.

Other than this, we have a patch for later today that will fix some issues found at the last minute before the update went live and a few extra ones reported after, plus some additional VFX.

This is about the time we like to either mention or write a whole blog post about the “what next?” question, the roadmap, the future, 1.0 release and adjacent topics.
Good news!
There’s one more feature we’ve got in the oven, the dreaded Endless Mode (name pending?). We have it playable internally, but we still need to playtest it and tweak it and see what the difficulty progression needs to be and all that stuff. Once we’re happy with that, we’ll slap the big ol’ 1.0 sticker on the game and release it out of Early Access! It’s really not that far off.
After that, we plan on supporting the game with any updates the game can benefit from. We’ll be listening to every piece of feedback we receive and see which ones we can do to further improve the game! Just like, keep in mind we’re a small team and don’t have the manpower to turn the ship (or the camera) in a whole different direction. Thanks!

If you have any questions about either modding, our release date, or just want to yell at us for making a (great) game, join our Discord server and let’s engage in some constructive discussions! Steam forums are fine too!

MarkoP

Patch Notes - Early Access Build 678477

New features:

• Revamped the final boss fight with new mechanics. It should now be more engaging, but also more rewarding: every victory will unlock new skills and relics that can be found in the following runs.
  
  
• Added new skills for each class:
  
• Warrior: Charge, Fend Off, Hook, Rebuke, Second Wind, Slam, Sword-sworn, Taunt.
  
• Ranger: Commanding Shot, Disengage, Explosive Arrow, Partner Up, Supply Line.
  
• Mystic: Cleanse, Empathy, Incense, Observation, Volatile Mixture.
  
  
• Added new per-class passive skills:
  
• Warrior: Automatically attacks enemies moving into or out of melee range to apply Bleeding.
  
• Ranger: Gets a stacking bonus to power and accuracy against a target flanked by the Ranger's allies.
  
• Mystic: Applies a stacking healing-over-time effect to allies standing next to the target of the Mystic's primary attack.
  
  
• At rank-up, instead of getting an automatic Health increase, Heroes will now be able to choose to improve either Health, Armor or a combination of both (presented via choice cards).
  
  
• Added official support for macOS (10.13 High Sierra or newer) and Linux (SteamOS 3.0 or Ubuntu 18.04 LTS).
  
  
• Added official support for Steam Deck.
  
  
• Added modding tools and integrated support for Steam Workshop.
  
• To install mods, subscribe to them here:
  
• http://steamcommunity.com/app/600610/workshop/
  
• Then run the game from Steam and select "moddable" from the popup menu. You can view and manage mods from the Options / Steam Workshop menu.
  
  
• To create mods, install and run The Hand of Merlin - Editor. We'll be adding modding guides soon - stay tuned!
  

General fixes:

• Fixed an issue where closing the game in specific circumstances could cause the save data to get corrupted - this should no longer be possible.
  
• Fixed a crash in the relic shop when dragging a relic into a slot where there is no hero.
  
• Fixed a bug where the reroll button for skill cards was not usable with a gamepad.
  
• Fixed a rare bug where Tariq's Bladedancer passive would not work correctly in certain cases.
  
• Fixed a rare crash if holding down [Esc] while the game is transitioning between states.
  
• Fixed a bug where unit attributes weren't updated when a status effect that affects that unit had its stack count changed.
  
• Fixed an issue where toggling "show extended tooltips" (formulas) didn't trigger an update for status effect tooltips, for cases where they had a value derived from a formula.
  
• Fixed an issue where destroyed cover objects could sometimes still show up as whole and translucent when hovered-over by mouse.
  
• Fixed a rare bug where encounter cards could get overlapped if clicking on them extremely fast.
  
• Fixed the tooltip for Pheasant Feather relic, which did not list the actual effect applied.
  
• Irish Gorget relic can no longer miss with its heal effect.
  
• Fixed an issue causing the Skein of Thread relic to be unequippable.
  
• "The House of Peace" encounter now correctly grants Supplies when picking pomegranates.
  

Quality of life changes:

• Fresh profiles will now start with 0 Essence, instead of 1. To offset this, winning the game now grants 1 essence every time as a minimum. This is a QoL feature because it eliminates the Core/Spell selection step of the loadout process for the very first run of a new player.
  
• Improved the Lobby UI (roster and loadout selection) - it should be both more informative and more intuitive now.
  
• Added "camera speed" option for the Lobby transitions.
  
• Removed the list of previous end-of-run reports from the Lobby, as this screen was very seldomly used.
  
• Improved the skill cards layout for better readability.
  
• Added stats tracking to Victory/Defeat screens: enemies defeated, turns taken, etc.
  
• Ability tooltips will now indicate the shape and size of an ability's area of effect in the tooltip header.
  
• Added an attribute breakdown to unit tooltips, for added clarity of various effects' interactions.
  
• All tooltips will now show formulas in parenthesis only if the formula is non-trivial (i.e. involves at least one multiplication).
  
• Added subtle box backgrounds for the various combat UI elements to make them easier to read in both light and dark environments.
  
• Improved the visuals of the in-game UI scrollbars.
  
• Improved the visuals of the in-game Bestiary's navigation labels.
  
• Changed the icons and names of the map nodes in the final zone (Jerusalem) to be more clear about what they reward.
  
• Renamed Mystic's Desecration skill into Raze, as this is more appropriate to the lore.
  

Gameplay balancing:

• Morgan Tud's Druid Physician passive is replaced with Thornwarden: it applies Thorns to adjacent allies after using Singe, granting them damage reflection.
  
• Zahra's starting skill (Stand Ready) is removed and replaced with Second Wind: it clears debuffs and restores armor to caster.
  
• Soft-disables will no longer be able to reduce attributes to zero, meaning they cannot turn into hard-disables. For example, Slow can no longer reduce Speed to zero, which would make it the same as Root.
  
• Mending now stacks with itself, but has a cap of 5 stacks.
  
• Bleeding now stacks with itself, but has a cap of 5 stacks.
  
• Ranger's Blinding Smoke skill (and its upgrades) have been buffed to apply stronger debuffs (now scaling with Power).
  
• Wilfred no longer starts with the Sprint skill, but instead with Shiv.
  
• Wilfred's passive (Non-chalant) has been buffed to deal more damage to Targeted enemies (now scaling with Power).
  
• Rumayla's passive (Piercer of the Veil) has been buffed - it now reduces targeted enemy's Power by -25% (instead of a flat -2).
  
• The extra damage granted through Breunor's passive (Keen) no longer applies to just one hit, but instead lasts for the whole turn.
  
• Zahra's starting Armor is now 25 (up from 15), and her starting Power is now 5 (up from 4).
  
• Zahra's passive (Resourceful) has been buffed - it now restores armor points equal to 50% of maximum Armor (instead of 1*Power).
  
• Ranger's Surging Shot skill (upgrade of Shoot) has been buffed. Grants Surge on damage dealt instead of health damage dealt.
  
• Abominations will no longer apply Poison or Bleeding - these effects are now reserved for players. Instead, monsters will apply Corruption, which has tighter rules on stacking and maximum damage per turn.