Stoneshard News

Hello everyone!

Today Stoneshard celebrates its first anniversary: it’s been exactly a year since the game was released into Early Access! By an amazing coincidence, the Black Boar tavern’s anniversary shares the same date - to honor this remarkable event, Brukk the Innkeeper decided to decorate his establishment. During this month his guests will also be gifted a free pie, baked by a special recipe. Make sure to launch the game to participate in the festivities!

Now back to our plans. Over the last year the game saw noticeable improvements: there were four major updates and a content patch, as well as an innumerable amount of hotfixes and smaller updates. We still have a long road ahead of us, something we will talk about today.

Right now we’re working on the “City of Gold” update, the largest one yet. It’s meant to significantly expand the global map, add basic caravan mechanics, the first major city, new biomes, new points of interest, random encounters, and also a number of currently unannounced, but very important features. As you can see, this is a lot of content, so “City of Gold” will be released approximately in Q2 2021.

Most new systems are still being prototyped, so it will be a while before the devlogs on them are published. While we’re working on the technical side of the global map, have a look at this concept art and teasers for the upcoming content:



As we implement the city of Brynn, we also plan to expand the game’s lore. There’ll likely be a few devlogs dedicated to it as well.

That’s all for now. Until the next devlog!

[h2]0.6.1.8 – CHANGELOG[/h2]

- The Black Boar tavern was decorated in celebration of the anniversary.
- You can now get a free pie from Brukk.
- Changed the troll rewards:

• Increased the gold reward up to 10 000 crowns.
  
• Most item rewards were changed: Weber will now give more expensive and higher level items.
  
• Added an option to ask for a crossbow, a spear, a two-handed axe, or a two-handed mace.

-Increased the loot quality in secret room containers. Some of them are now guaranteed to have unique items.
- Vases as well as both common and wealthy sarcophaguses now contain less valuable loot.
- Temporarily removed unpopular or useless effects (such as resistances to rare damage types) from the list of possible enchantments.
- Changed the power of some enchantment effects:

• Bleed Chance, Damage Reflection: +5% > +7.5%
  
• Fire, Unholy, Move, Control, and Bleed Resistances: +5% > +10%
  
• Armor Damage: +25% > +33%
  
• Crit Efficiency: +20% > +25%
  
• Spells and Skills Energy Costs, Cooldowns Duration: -10% > -7.5%

- With certain exceptions, equipment higher than level 10 can no longer be found in graves. Drop rates for the rest of the valuable loot were increased.
- [Counterattack Mastery] No longer grants Off-Hand Efficiency if the main hand holds a shield.
- Decreased the base level range for the equipment sold by merchants.
- Fixed the Skeleton Crossbowman, which was technically armed with a bow.
- Defensive Stance now works as described.
- Skinning a dog now yields a pelt of the correct color.
- Fixed the bug preventing unlocked skills from being saved.
- Fixed the bug with the Sigil of Darkness disappearing prematurely.
- Fixed animals not displaying a visual indicator when entering a territorial state after being shot at.

• Fixed enemies opening quest doors.
  
• Fixed an issue in the algorithm for alarm accumulation from noise (enemies no longer react to it as fast as they used to).
  
• Multiple changes to some enemy abilities’ usage algorithms.
  
• Fixed Daze Chance from “Earthquake” not taking Control Resistance into account.
  
• Fixed “Elusiveness” not working against enemy skills.
  
• Fixed the Experience exploit with disarming claw traps.
  
• Fixed AoE zones applying their effects to the Troll multiple times per turn.
  
• Fixed the incorrect information on associated Attributes in new stances’ descriptions.
  
• Fixed Injuries persisting after sleeping even if body parts are not damaged.
  
• Fixed the Troll being able to attack while being affected by both Burning and Regeneration.
  
• Fixed “Right on Target” not working with new skill trees’ abilities.
  
• Fixed “Danse Macabre” not reducing enemies’ stats.
  
• Fixed “Coup de Grace” dealing incorrect damage.
  
• “Tormenting Swings” now only triggers on critical hits, as stated in its description.
  
• Fixed the incorrect base value of Armor Penetration (was -5% instead of 0%).
  
• Fixed certain stats being calculated incorrectly while dual wielding.
  
• Fixed the inability of switching to another Tactic while low on Energy.
  
• Fixed the log message for enemies disarming traps.
  
• Fixed the log message for gathering berries.
  
• The effects of “Stagger” are now twice as weak. Its maximum duration is now 1 turn.
  
• Shouting now generates less noise.
  
• Reduced some of the Troll’s resistances and Knockback Chance, increased its Health.
  
• Increased the chance of disarming claw traps.
  
• The Restless and Ghasts now have 100% Bleed Resistance.
  
• Reduced damage from weapon throwing by 25%.
  
• Enemy archers now drop their melee weapons on death.
  
• Added Ranged Weapons treatises to Unar the Scribe’s stock.
  
• Throwing now generates less noise.
  
• Landing an arrow near enemies now raises their alarm level.
  
• Resurrected enemies can no longer be seen through the fog of war.
  
• Enemies can now also miss when using “Fire Barrage”.
  
• Enemies can no longer retreat while Immobilized.
  
• Wraiths now become aggressive on the same turn as they appear from their sarcophagus.
  
• Enemies will no longer cast “Sacrificial Blood” on themselves.
  
• Using medical consumables now stops the character’s movement.
  
• Fixed the Beastslayer’s corpse sprite being displayed incorrectly.
  
• Fixed grip visuals for some axes.
  
• Numerous visual fixes.
  
• Numerous text fixes.
  

- The character no longer gets wet in the rain if staying under a tree.
- Fixed the duration of “Defensive Tactic”.
- Fixed “Mighty Kick” not applying Stagger when failing to knock its target back.
- Fixed crashes caused by throwing certain items.
- Fixed “Taking Aim” not working with crossbows.
- Reputation bonuses which increase traders’ stock no longer apply to the trapper and the scribe.
- Removed an excess folder in the trapper’s trade menu.
- Fixed the crash caused by dying to an unsuccessfully disarmed trap.
- “Blow After Blow” no longer triggers from destroying props.
- Fixed enemies spawning outside of the Abbey’s walls.
- Changed the on-hit algorithm: Fumble Chance is now given a priority over Crit Chance.
- “Grave Chill” now puts abilities on a 1-4 turns Cooldown instead of a 5 turns one.
- Fixed the incorrect duration of the effect of Al’qud.
- Changed priorities for enemies’ consumable usage.
- Fixed the automatic turn skip upon entering a new location.
- Added “Skinning” to the ability bar.
- Map tiles with points of interest now follow the same weather rules as the rest of the world.
- Coughing now correctly reduces Energy by 10 points, not 10%.
- Fixed trajectories for chopped heads.
- Birds no longer scare each other when taking off.
- “Determination” no longer hits the Troll multiple times.
- Fixed “Arc Cleave” replenishing an incorrect amount of Energy.
- Fixed “Onslaught” burning an incorrect amount of Energy.
- Runic boulders now generate less noise upon being raised.
- Fixed “Taste of Victory” not replenishing Energy.
- “Defensive Tactic” no longer grants an extra stack to stances when using a spell.
- “Feast of Steel” now grants Crit Chance instead of Stagger Chance, as stated in its description.
- Fixed some enemies getting multiple Pain debuffs simultaneously.
- Fixed saigas not dropping any meat when skinned.
- The undead and wraith enemies can no longer be put in Coma.
- Mushrooms can now spoil.
- Fixed the crash caused by “Hunter’s Mark”.
- Fixed the character moving into a tile with a trap right after setting it up.
- Log messages about enemies getting the Pain debuff no longer appear while they are hidden in the fog of war.
- Fixed the missing sprite for the damaged Visored Bascinet.
- Multiple fixes to enemy search algorithms.
- Numerous text fixes.

• Fixed the bug preventing new two-handed weapons from being sold by merchants
  
• Fixed the crash caused by applying a debuff to a dying target.
  
• Fixed the "trade" option in the context menu, which hadn't been displaying for new characters.
  
• Fixed lighting issues.
  
• Fixed traps not triggering properly.
  
• Added the missing percent sign to Stagger Chance.
  
• Fixed incorrect two-handed hammers' prices.
  
• Multiple fixes to the text.