Stoneshard News

Hello everyone!

The last couple of months our team has been working on lots of new content: the long-awaited Caravan, the previously highlighted rework of the Dungeon Generator, and dungeon and settlement modifiers that will be a part of the upcoming Contract System rework - speaking of which, today we’d like to elaborate on some of its elements, namely Outskirts locations.

Outskirts are a new type of Points of Interest that will be introduced to the game with the next major update, “Rags to Riches”. Located a few tiles away from settlements, they still act as their continuation of sorts

Their main purpose is to add more variety to the basic contract loop and facilitate early game exploration. Most Outskirts will usually offer you the following things:

• A spot to save your progress.
  
• Access to one or more traders and craftsmen who will sell vital consumables, fix your gear, etc.
  
• A chance to interact with new NPCs who can offer you contracts or give rewards for their completion.

It’s fair to say that granting alternative access to contracts and rewards is perhaps the Outskirts’ most important function. After “Rags to Riches”, village Elders won’t be the only ones in the contract business, the following three new NPC types - Officials, Captains, and Couriers - will be able to participate as well.

Their main difference from Elders lies in the rewards they will offer:

- Captains won’t pay as much, instead providing extra Reputation with settlements you complete contracts for.
- Officials will split the Reputation boost between all settlements of their faction (for instance, completing Osbrook contracts will slightly improve your standing with both Brynn and Mannshire).
- Couriers won’t actually hand out quests, instead giving rewards for completing contracts that require you retrieving certain items. Bringing those directly to a Courier will earn you extra gold.

Additionally, contract rewards can be received from any of these NPCs regardless of your initial quest giver, thus breaking the routine of walking the same roads over and over again. So instead of having to stick to the “settlement-dungeon-settlement” route, you’ll be able to receive a contract in a village, clear out its dungeon, get your reward in a nearby Outskirt, grab a new contract there, sell your loot and replenish supplies (optionally), then head straight to the next dungeon.



All Outskirts can be roughly split between these three categories:

- Military Camps and Outposts. This is where you’ll find Captains and, most likely, someone to fix your gear and sell you medicine and ammunition.
- Trade Posts and Production Sites. Their main role is selling special goods that can be transported to other settlements via the Caravan and sold at a profit. An example of such a site would be the Osbrook Mill or the Mannshire Winery, which many of you are already familiar with. This is where you may also encounter Officials, who are tasked with overseeing the production.
- Homesteads and Roadside Inns. These locations will offer a hearty meal, a place to catch some shut-eye, and a chance to meet a Courier, should the need arise.

To better illustrate the system, here are some of the new Outskirts:

Osbrook - Roadside Tower



Not wanting to be caught off guard if the Council suddenly breaches the truce, the Magistrate took it upon themselves to restore the web of outposts and signal towers that now covers the entirety of the Brynn March.

Osbrook - Drunken Woodsman Inn



The Drunken Woodsman is a safe haven for any hunter whose trade brings them close to Osbrook.

Mannshire - New Orchard



The war gave the best cidery in Aldor little time to react: its previous owners couldn’t save neither themselves nor the flourishing gardens, taking the ancient recipe of their specialty beverage to the grave. But not all hope is lost: the new proprietors of the New Orchard are determined to do everything in their power to restore this place to its former glory.

Mannshire - Southern Outpost



This encampment was originally established by Duke di Berro during his brazen counterattack against the Council army. It’s not nearly as large as it used to be, but it still plays an important role in bringing order to the Magistrate-controlled lands.

It’s worth mentioning that the existence of Brynn contracts and dungeons is only temporary (in the future there’ll be an entirely new way of gaining city Reputation), so it won’t have Outskirts in the gameplay sense of the word. At the same time, you can expect a certain other location to receive its share of Outskirts POIs…

[h3]New Backpacks[/h3]

Let’s move onto the next addition planned for “Rags to Riches” - a wide selection of new bags and their overall rework.

Right now the game features just one backpack type that offers as many slots as it occupies in the inventory - this was done to prevent exploits associated with carrying multiple backpacks.

In “Rags to Riches”, all bags and backpacks will become much more capacious. As a tradeoff, you’ll have to equip them first before storing any items, and they’ll have to be emptied before you can place them in the inventory. These combined tweaks allowed us to create a bunch of new backpack configurations:

Medium Backpack grew in capacity and received sizable side pouches.

Small Backpack isn’t particularly roomy, but it’ll be much easier to obtain than other bag types.

Field Surgeon Bandolier - a solid choice for anyone who wants to carry lots of meds and other consumables.

Herbalist Satchel allows you to not really worry about precious inventory space while transporting large amounts of potion flasks and other vessels or gathering important herbs.

Hunting Backpack is meant to easily fit a few pelts and can be used to comfortably carry a bedroll.

Treasure Seeker Backpack will greatly improve your carrying capacity, although its bulky frame will do no favors to your agility and finesse.

On top of all that, it will also be possible to store single cell treasure items in common Purses.

And finally, here’s a teaser for the much-anticipated Armor ability tree that we’re currently working on as well:



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That’s all for now. Until next time!

- Fixed the bug causing accumulated Pain levels to change too abruptly when the Pain Limit is decreased.
- “Keep Them Coming” can no longer be triggered by casting spells.
- Fixed “Determination” doing nothing when used against enemies on the same tile as a doorway.
- Fixed the possibility of attacking Runic Boulders while Stunned.
- Added an Accuracy bonus to Throwing Nets, Nistrian Flame Flasks, and Spider Blood Flasks.
- Fixed the bug causing some contracts to not register the Necromancer’s death.
- Fixed Brigand Geomancers casting “Stone Spikes” without a good enough reason.
- Fixed Brigand Geomancers using the character’s Spell Range instead of their own when casting “Boulder Toss”.
- Dungeon Bats and Giant Rats can no longer open doors.
- Updated Crowns’ sprite.
- Fixed Elite Brynn Guards not switching to their alternative sprite when in combat state.
- Fixed Horse Pelts using an incorrect sprite when dropped on the floor.
- The Brigands' speech lines aimed at nearby allies are no longer triggered by nearby dogs.
- Bleeding enemies no longer use the character’s speech lines.
- Completely fixed the bug that allowed some animals to use speech lines.
- The Brynn Hierophant now uses his intended name and role.
- Fixed Mannshire Guards being tagged as Osbrook Guards.
- The standalone Prologue is now up-to-date.

- Fixed the freezes reported by some players when playing with the native cursor enabled. Returned the option to enable it in the settings.
- Fixed some empty vessels being able to apply their targets with “Wetness” and “Covered in Alcohol” when thrown.
- Fixed wolf packs getting stuck in the “Howl” loop.
- Fixed the possibility of avoiding death by moving to another location on the same turn as receiving lethal damage.
- Adjusted the menu layout for the 1280x800 screen resolution.
- The cursor size now adapts to the game window size.
- Fixed “Rune of Enfeeblement” and “Rune of Fortifying” granting their effect regardless of the distance to a runic boulder.
- Fixed the occasional crash caused by killing Girruds.
- Fixed the issue with displaced container menus.
- Reduced the intensity of the “Drunkenness” visual effects.
- Fixed Necromancers using the same speech lines as the generic Undead.
- Fixed the bug causing enemies to use incorrect speech lines under certain circumstances.
- Tweaked the effectiveness of alcohol and the Bloodletting Lancet to make Pain and Intoxication more manageable during the early stages of the game.

- After the latest hotfix a small percentage of players started to experience occasional game freezes when playing with the native cursor enabled. We're still investigating, so as a temporary fix we disabled this option until a proper solution is found.
- Fixed an issue that sometimes didn't properly register killing dungeon bosses.
- Fixed "Short Circuit" incorrectly mentioning being modified by Bonus Range.
- Fixed the "Intimidation" hover displaying a technical tag instead of the debuff chance.
- Fixed critical kill character lines being triggered when targeting inanimate objects.

[h3]MAIN CHANGES[/h3]

- Reworked the Drunkenness mechanic:

- Drunkenness was split into 4 stacks with varying changes to stats: 1 and 2 stacks of the effect are mostly beneficial, while 3 and 4 are largely detrimental.
- The number of stacks depends on the effect’s duration and is tied to specific thresholds (1x / 120x / 240x / 300x ). Stacks can only go up: once a threshold is achieved, they will remain until the effect’s duration completely runs out.
- Apart from changing the character’s stats, Drunkenness also has special modifiers that manifest with each added stack. 2 stacks of Drunkenness can cause Confusion, 3 stacks - Vomiting, and 4 stacks introduce a chance to fall Asleep. These chances change dynamically depending on the number of stacks and the effect’s remaining duration.
- Vomiting while asleep deals significant damage to your character and can potentially be lethal.
- The intensity of visual effects now changes depending on the effect’s number of stacks. The distortions and wobbling will be barely noticeable while affected by 1 stack and will reach the levels of old Drunkenness by the time you achieve 4 stacks.
- The duration of Drunkenness gained from drinking alcohol is governed by several factors. High Hunger will increase the duration, while high Vitality and Intoxication Resistance will do the opposite.
- At the end of its duration, Drunkenness with 3 or 4 stacks will transform into Hangover.
- Unlike other types of Aftermath, Hangover allows you to drink alcohol without triggering Bad Trip, offering an opportunity to partially negate the debuff.
- Elven Citruses, Mindwort, Ginger Roots, and Antitoxin can be used to gradually reduce the duration of Drunkenness.

- Added ~400 new speech lines for the player character (including unique lines for each preset option), the Brigands, and the Undead. The list of conditions that can trigger speech lines was greatly expanded as well.
- Added more options to display settings: fullscreen, bordered, windowed.

[h3]GAMEPLAY & BALANCE[/h3]

- Offensive skills’ bonuses to Accuracy and/or Fumble Chance are no longer individual. Instead, there’s now a universal bonus of +10% Accuracy and -5% Fumble Chance. Leveling “Right on Target” will improve it directly.
- Increased stat gains from Strength.
(for each achieved threshold): [+5% > +7.5%] Weapon Damage, [+10% > +15%] Armor Damage, [+10% > +15%] Crit Efficiency
(for each SP invested): [+2.5% > +3%] Bodypart Damage)
- Reduced the base Block Power and Block Power coefficients for most weapons.
- Changed the order of condition checks for Distant Dungeons' boss chests (if all possible Artifacts are already found, these chests are now guaranteed to spawn a unique item).
- If an ability is modified by Bonus Range or a specialized Magic School’s Power, it will now be listed in its hover.
- Standardized the way Bonus Range interacts with spells. Increased the number of spells affected by it.
- Reduced the base Range of some Pyromancy spells.
- Rather than working within the entirety of the caster’s Vision Range, Geomancy spells now have their own Range stat, just like all other Magic Schools.
- Increased the durability of Runic Boulders (boosting the damage dealt to anyone Knocked back into them), but greatly reduced their Resistances, making them much more vulnerable to attacks.
- Moving to another location will now automatically skip a turn, giving enemies a free action.
- Significantly reduced the passive Pain decay [-0.2 per turn if all conditions are met > -0.05 per turn / -0.5 per turn if the current Pain is higher than Pain Threshold > -0.25 per turn]
- Tweaked the stat scaling of Mace skills (some of the skills’ effects now favor Strength over Agility).
- Significantly reduced Leechworms’ Accuracy and increased their Fumble Chance.
- Bad Trip will no longer increase Intoxication.
- Reduced the durability of sarcophaguses. Knocking enemies against them should no longer deal obscene amounts of damage.
- Increased the impact of active debuffs on the Rest Mode’s restorative effects.
- Bloodletting Lancets now use a different mechanic.
- Generic Brynn merchants no longer sell treatises.

[h3]FIXES[/h3]

- Fixed the exploit allowing to dupe items with the Caravan Storage.
- Fixed the Bloodletting Lancet not displaying in the character's hands when equipped.
- When inspecting enemies, the displayed Resistances to individual Damage types will no longer duplicate the numbers gained from the Resistances to broad Damage categories. This change should noticeably reduce the size of enemies’ hovers and improve their readability.
- Fixed Backfire Damage not having 100% Armor Penetration, which was allowing to completely negate it with some armor.
- Fixed an issue that made it impossible to reduce the base Backfire Chance of spells.
- Fixed the upper threshold of Backfire Damage being displayed as 100% instead of 200%.
- Fixed the bug with Stone Spikes’ durability that was causing enemies to receive minuscule amounts of damage when Knocked back into them.
- Fixed Crit Efficiency not being split between hands in the Character menu while dual-wielding.
- Fixed the loot generation bug that was causing contract chest in high level dungeons to provide insufficient rewards.
- Fixed Pyromancy spells granting excessive bonus to Pyromantic Power when learned [2.5% > 2%].
- Fixed “Deadly Trick” increasing its user’s Crit Chance upon activation.
- Fixed “Unstoppable” replenishing Energy for 20% of the character’s Max Health instead of Max Energy.
- Fixed “Earthquake” burning a static amount of Energy instead of the listed percentage.
- Added a cap to Energy Burn applied by “Earthquake”. The effect scales with Willpower.
- Fixed “Cauterize Wounds” increasing the duration of its effect with each stopped Bleeding rather than boosting the effect’s power.
- Fixed enemies being able to use “Maneuver” to traverse 2 tiles in 1 turn.
- Fixed the Ancient Troll taking multiple instances of damage from “Piercing Shot”.
- Fixed “Whirlwind” being able to move nests and hives.
- Fixed “Determination” being able to hit charging enemies multiple times per turn (by Knocking them back over and over again).
- Fixed Martyrs’ “Blessed in Death” granting its bonuses to the character instead of the Proselytes.
- “Offensive Tactic” should now correctly improve the character’s Accuracy when they miss with a ranged weapon.
- Fixed “Peck” being able to apply Blindness upon hitting any body part, not just the target’s head.
- Fixed “Berserk Tradition” not granting Dodge Chance for each degree of Injury affecting the character (this includes stabilized Injuries as well).
- Fixed the hover of “War Cry” displaying a technical tag instead of the debuff chance.
- Fixed “War Cry” granting 1 less turn of “Battle Rage” than mentioned in its hover.
- Fixed the hover of “War Cry” not mentioning Willpower as a relevant attribute.
- Fixed “War Cry” using an incorrect area of effect.
- Fixed “Keep Them Coming” not granting the effect of “Mighty Swing” when killing enemies with the ability tree’s skills and critical hits simultaneously.
- Fixed ranged enemies being able to use “Seize the Initiative” from a distance without actually taking a shot.
- Fixed the bug that prevented the use of abilities while Frozen Stiff.
- Skipping time by sleeping will no longer take the Rest Mode’s bonuses into account.
- Fixed the issue with the display of stats in the Character menu when using the Rest Mode.
- Fixed Brigand Paymasters not being able to attack the character under certain circumstances.
- Possibly fixed the crash caused by moving to a different location if a Brigand Geomancer summons a Runic Boulder on the same turn.
- Fixed Brigand Geomancers being able to use Runic Boulders outside of their Vision Range.
- Fixed the Blessed Aquamanile healing damaged body parts for a smaller amount than mentioned in its hover.
- Fixed Paregoric not granting immunity to Coughing when it’s applied by Harpies’ “Unbearable Stench”.
- Fixed the crash caused by the Manticore’s “Lion Leap”.
- Fixed the bug with the“Gwynnel’s Answers” quest that could potentially result in the disappearance of the hidden lever.
- Fixed Brynn Guards using incorrect speech lines.
- Fixed Leechworms and certain other animals being able to use speech lines.
- Ahruz from the Prologue is now correctly listed as an elf rather than a human.
- Fixed the outdated hover of “Curse”.
- Fixed the outdated hover of “Baleful Scream”.
- Fixed the collision issues affecting the second floor of the Brynn Bank and the cart in the Plague Village.
- Fixed the layering issue with the Brynn Banker's sprite.
- Fixed the Guard Helmet not displaying correctly when worn by Arna.
- Fixed certain vessels’ sprites not displaying correctly in the inventory and when dropped on the floor.
- Fixed the incorrect sprite of the tier IV Ranged Weapons treatise.
- Fixed the issue with the Throwing Net’s visuals when used on Young Trolls.
- Fixed “Sleep” darkening the screen on top of the already existing visual effect.