Nowhere Prophet News

Hello from me on a Saturday!

I came in to the office on Saturday to make a quick update to the game. In the PREVIEW branch you can now find 1.00.022 Arudha. It has a few minor changes to the last one, primarily a bunch of translation updates which make this version viable as a release for everyone sometime next week. Should nothing be broken, as usual.

So, what's different in this one?


A few of you have requested an ingame rule book and this build includes one. Accessible via the pause menu you can now read the rule book at any time during gameplay.

This required me to change some animation things since the pause menu is during paused gameplay so hopefully that broke nothing. Let me know if you encounter any issues!


Some of you have complained about inconsistent trigger sequencing. For example if the last unit in a row gains taunt and each unit with taunt gains +0/+2, then it would change the orders after each trigger so the sequence would only work every other time.

This is obviously weird and wrong so I took a look at it and tweaked it. However all the trigger stuff is a bit fragile so this might cause some weirdness elsewhere. If you spot anything, please let me know!




As mentioned last time: This version features a change to the attack rules: Units can now attack the obstacle that is directly blocking them, even if they are not in the frontline.

This required some changes to the tutorial texts and images which are updated in this build too, as you can see above.


Here's a brief look at the complete changelog:

Originally posted by changelog

Balancing
• Scion Instigator now 2/4 (was (4/3)
• Raj Guard Gladiator & Leper Alchemist enemies tweaked
• Obstacles directly in front of a unit can now be attacked, even by non-frontline units
• Drone Factory Shelter fortification event made a bit easier (less drones on board at start)

Interface
• Followers filter system completely updated
• Renamed followers have their name highlighted in yellow
• Followers can now be renamed with an empty name giving them a shame name (thanks to the Discord for providing ideas and inspiration!)
• Increased the size of the Show Battlefield button during the mulligan phase
• Rulebook and tutorial updated to reflect new attacking rules
• Ingame rulebook added
• Nowhere Prophet (a game by me!) intro logo added
• Attack positioning tutorial extended (obstacle attack rule) and image updated

Bugfixes
• Rock granted by custodian is a Leader card, as all other obstacles
• The first phase of Kaalrati is again marked as a Boss enemy
• Typos and corrections to some event text
• All valuables now sell properly without hiccups
• Fixed the order of the BUY and SELL tabs in the shop screen
• Union deserters event no longer is a fight against Machinists
• The order of triggers is no longer switched around every other time
• Suppressing buff triggers during mulligan draw phase now

See you all next week!

- Martin

Just a quick note that the preview version received a small update just now. This includes just minor tweaks to some of the balancing, some bugfixes in the follower filter and some tutorial/rulebook changes.

• Scion Instigator now 2/4 (was (4/3)
• Raj Guard Gladiator & Leper Alchemist enemies tweaked
• Sorting by new works now
• Sorting by faction works now
• Units with 1 max health and Robust now work again

Also please note that this (and the last) preview version contains the following change:

Obstacles directly in front of a unit can now be attacked, even by non-frontline units

Any feedback on this change would be very much appreciated!

- Martin

Time for another update to the preview branch!

I've spoken about the follower filters yesterday and this update makes them accessible to everyone who's playing in the preview branch on Steam!

This is me testing my German translation


Well, the obvious one is the follower filter system. But with that comes the follower naming feature AND the ability to attack obstacles, even if boxed in.

Here's the changelog:

Originally posted by v1.00.020

Interface
• Followers filter system completely updated
• Renamed followers have their name highlighted in yellow
• Followers can now be renamed with an empty name giving them a shame name (thanks to the Discord for providing ideas and inspiration!)
• Increased the size of the Show Battlefield button during the mulligan phase
• Obstacles directly in front of a unit can now be attacked, even by non-frontline units

Bugfixes
• Rock granted by custodian is a Leader card, as all other obstacles
• The first phase of Kaalrati is again marked as a Boss enemy
• Typos and corrections to some event text
• All valuables now sell properly without hiccups
• Fixed the order of the BUY and SELL tabs in the shop screen

Yes, this is a little experiment. One of the downsides of the current system is that you can easily box the AI in with rocks, or the AI can do it to you (Sorry Frrrr).



If you do it, it's what I call "rock fun". Cleverly obstructing enemies and getting some cool wins in. If it happens to you though, it can end a perfect run if you're not drawing the right card to get yourself an opening.

To that end I want to try something I originally tested way back when, but then decided against. However by now a lot of things have shifted and changed, so it might work better now. So in this PREVIEW:

Non-frontline units can attack the obstacles in their row.

This weakens the tactic to block lanes but it also weakens the power of push and pull cards. It might also need some adjustments to how the AI evaluates obstacles but that comes later.

For now, give it a spin and let me know how it feels!


This is an in progress build and as such comes with a few notes and warnings:

• The new obstacle-attacking rules are not reflected in the text (tutorial or rule book) yet
  
• The new text labels for the filters are not translated to all languages yet
  
• This is just lightly tested so please report any issues you encounter!

Since the localization thing is something that takes a while it might be some time before this update makes its way to the live branch.

And obviously, as always, please let me know how things play/feel/work! Especially in regards to the obstacle attack change.


I'm already working on the things after the follower filter update. I've mentioned it before and I'm still looking at energy costs for powers, which seems very likely, potential keyword changes, some of which might make the cut, and maybe even a tiny bit of new content.

All of these bits need some more testing (and localization!) so that is slowing them down right now.

In the meantime, enjoy this preview!

- Martin

Hey y'all.

I'm pretty tired and in the middle of a bunch of changes so this is a short one. I just wanted to chime in quickly and share the progress of the Follower Filter changes with everyone.



This popup is new and allows you to select more detailed filter options for your followers. Check out that brand spanking new (and finally usable) cost filter interface!


A little secret trick: We talked about "favoriting" some of your followers and in the Discord we came up with the idea of combining renaming with "favoriting". So if you rename a follower, his name is now displayed in yellow. And you can filter by "renamed" followers, thus using the renaming feature you can favorite some of your people.

They have distinguished themselves and are given a new name within your community!

And what if you someone no longer is one of the prophet's favorites? If they have fallen out of favor, simply strip them of their name within the brotherhood and they will have to go back to using a random name in shame. (simply give them an empty name in the rename popup)


So that's it but before I close out for today, I have a question for everyone: Do you use the "show all cards" feature in the Follower Screen? The checkbox that shows the darkened cards that are in your deck (those on the right hand side) also in the left hand side. I'm not sure if this is a feature that needs to remain because I fear it might just make things a bit more complicated.

Your thoughts?

- Martin

Those of you that are tuned in to the PREVIEW channel of the game have had the chance to play with this update over the weekend. Now that Monday has rolled around and nothing significant broke, its time to make this one go live.


Here's an overview over the chances in the latest update. A lot of it is related to stability and balance. Plus some improvements to the interface to make it quicker to grasp.

Originally posted by changelog

Balancing
• Improved states for opening the gate with follower count was reduced to 25/50
• Armored enemies have a tad less armor
• AI now properly evaluates and targets obstacles with Taunt
• You gain Focus as normal on Doomed difficulty now
• Juggernaut cost increased to 5 (was 3)
• Decoy changed to 2/4 (was 1/4)

Interface
• Followers in Combat now only show the "multiple effects" icon if they actually have multiple icons to display
• Critical enemy buffs are marked blue in pre-combat screens
• Event buildings leading to potential boss fights are marked red in locations
• Focus value display changed in edit deck screen
• Crypt Gate events split and put on the map and into the location
• Chance labels in event options adjusted to be more accurate
• Added visual effect to unsummoning of units

Bugfixes
• Brain Drain can now target obstacles as expected
• Coordinated Swarm now also potentially targets the enemy leader
• Battlefield Sense no longer triggers if Energy is full
• Quickly unsummoning a unit with a fury effect no longer creates a stuck card
• Can no longer spam ESC to quit out of Mulligan while game is still setting up starting state
• Can no longer sneak illegal attacks in during animation (queueing an attack while kennel master is off the board and before his dog has appeared now leads to no action happening)
• Route Generator now no longer creates multiples of unique locations (gladiator camp, boss locations)
• Palanquin fortification event no longer picks non-follower but destroys follower

As mentioned on Friday, this week will be about tweaking the Powers (by adding Energy costs) and then improving the follower screen with better filters/sorting.

I'm also looking at some of the more problematic keywords. I'm playing around with some changes right now, which might be ready for release next week (or they might not).




One of the things I'm looking at is First Strike. Nowhere Prophet is a game where keeping control of the board is very important, and losing it can be very punishing. First Strike increases this issue since First Strike units if you are behind do nothing (since it only triggers on attack) and if you are in front they are real work horses when it comes to cleaning out the enemy side.

So to that end I'm currently trying a drastic change: Stun Strike as a replacement. Stun Strike says that whenever this unit deals damage to another unit, that unit is stunned.

This has some interesting ramification: It still provides access to a similar effect (no retaliation damage) but not for the Stun Strike unit directly, but rather for everyone else. It would also trigger when you're behind, so any unit attacking your Stun Strike unit would be stunned during your next turn. And lastly it gives more access to Stun, which is an interesting keyword.

And yeah, that's it for today.

If you enjoy these updates and the game, please consider leaving a Review! They are the best way to tell Steam (and other players) that this game is fun.

Thanks for playing and for reading,
- Martin