Public Test Branch (0.6.002a)
Hello mercenaries,
The Friends and Foes update is now available on the public test branch!
To opt in: Go to your Steam Library, right click The Iron Oath and select Properties. From there, go to the Betas tab and select "Public test branch" from the drop down menu.
For now, we recommend starting a fresh campaign, as existing saves will not work properly just yet (though they will be supported when we move the update to the main branch).
As mentioned in our last post, the update will need a few weeks on the test branch in order to make sure it's fully ready and balanced. It's fairly stable at the moment, but we are still working through bugs and fixing some mechanics that aren't working as intended. We'll be listing the full patch notes when we drop it on the main branch, but for now here is the gist of what has been changed:
Known issues:
If you do encounter any bugs, please report them in game if possible, otherwise you can report them in our Discord or here on Steam. We're especially looking to hear your thoughts on combat balance, combat deployment, and character progression as well.
We've left some debug commands enabled, so if you encounter an issue where combat softlocks you can hit F10 which should fix the problem most of the time. Additionally, if you wanted to test some higher level characters/dungeons, you can open up the console(~) in game and use the following commands:
You can change the numbers to whatever you want. For character level, anything between 1-40 is valid.
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Big thanks in advance for helping us playtest all these changes, we hope you enjoy them!
-Curious Panda Games
The Friends and Foes update is now available on the public test branch!
To opt in: Go to your Steam Library, right click The Iron Oath and select Properties. From there, go to the Betas tab and select "Public test branch" from the drop down menu.
For now, we recommend starting a fresh campaign, as existing saves will not work properly just yet (though they will be supported when we move the update to the main branch).
As mentioned in our last post, the update will need a few weeks on the test branch in order to make sure it's fully ready and balanced. It's fairly stable at the moment, but we are still working through bugs and fixing some mechanics that aren't working as intended. We'll be listing the full patch notes when we drop it on the main branch, but for now here is the gist of what has been changed:
- Attributes Overhaul: Attributes have been reworked, and a new 'Mending' attribute has been added that increases the potency of Heals and Damage Shields (Power no longer affects them).
- Levelling Overhaul: On level up, the Attribute Points you gain can be spent towards ranking up attributes of your choosing. Overall, the increases are much more significant than before, though a few stats have diminishing returns for balance reasons.
- Level Cap: The level caps have been adjusted. From levels 1-20 you will gain both Attribute and Ability Points on level up. Level 20 is the new softcap, and from 21-40 you will only gain Attribute Points (3 per level).
- Class Abilities: We've adjusted the base function of a few abilities to give players more incentive to use them.
- Full Ability Trees: We've made adjustments to almost every ability tree, and the 3rd and 4th tier of ability upgrades are now implemented. They can be upgraded at level 5 and level 10 respectively.
- Increased Party Size: The maximum number of characters in a party has been increased from 4 to 5.
- New and Modified Conditions: We've added some new combat conditions and have tweaked a few existing ones.
- Reworked Enemies: We've reworked a lot of enemies, changing their stats and their abilities (some minor changes, some major). Overall, enemies are now more specialized in what they do.
- New Enemies: We've added 30 new enemy variants into the game for more variation from fight to fight.
- Enemy Composition Rework: We've changed the way enemies are selected for a fight. The new method makes the difficulty level much more consistent (and it's easier for us to balance!).
- Enemy Traits: Elites and Bosses now spawn with Traits (from a pool of 50) that add an extra strategic consideration when fighting them, ranging from statistical increases to unique combat mechanics. You can view their traits by mousing over their portrait or by mousing over their sprite and pressing Tab.
- Combat Deployment: The deployment zones available for both sides are now more varied (it's no longer always left vs right!).
- Line of Sight and Ranged Unit Mechanics: We've made some adjustments to Line of Sight, making ranged units less effective in certain situations when shooting through other units to hit their target. Ranged units will no longer be able to attack other targets when they have an adjacent enemy without incurring an Attack of Opportunity. Additionally, if they try to attack an adjacent target they will only do 50% damage (these mechanics aren't fully functional just yet).
- New UI Screens: The Manage Roster and Storage screens have been completely redesigned. Other screens now have their own dedicated windows (and will also be receiving a redesign to match the style of the new roster screen).
- Codex: We've added a Codex screen that contains information on all enemies, enemy traits, and combat conditions. To view the codex entry for an enemy, simply right click their portrait.
- Combat Frequency: Because of the rebalanced enemies and character attributes, fights now take a bit longer on average. To compensate for this, we've lowered the number of fights in dungeons to 2,3 and 4 for Short, Medium and Long dungeons respectively.
Known issues:
- If there are too many enemies, waiting near the start of the round makes the character lose their turn for that round.
- Taunted units aren't attacking.
- Many of the tutorial videos need to be updated.
- Overworld Encounter difficulty still needs to be adjusted (currently far too easy).
- Some ability upgrades aren't working properly (we're aware of most issues and are working through them, but still feel free to let us know if something isn't working right!).
- Many character traits are in the process of being changed, so their effects may not match the description that is shown.
- A few enemy traits aren't functioning correctly or matching their description (but we're aware of all the issues). You might also see some trait names that do not have a description (these are ones that we ended up not implementing and we need to remove them from the pool).
- There are a few enemy abilities and passive abilities that aren't working as described (we think we have all the issues documented, but it's possible we overlooked some so feel free to let us know if you come across any).
- A few UI screens may look a little off, as they still need to be updated to match the new style.
- Because we reduced the number of fights in dungeons, there will be some longer stretches of empty tiles. We'll be addressing this in our next major update which is focused on improving dungeon exploration mechanics.
- So far we've only done comprehensive testing on the Battle-Hardened difficulty. If you do try Adventurer or Warlord, please let us know how it feels in comparison to before (but fair warning it may not be totally balanced just yet!).
- The build isn't available on Mac just yet. If anyone wants to test on Mac just let us know and we'll put together a build for it.
If you do encounter any bugs, please report them in game if possible, otherwise you can report them in our Discord or here on Steam. We're especially looking to hear your thoughts on combat balance, combat deployment, and character progression as well.
We've left some debug commands enabled, so if you encounter an issue where combat softlocks you can hit F10 which should fix the problem most of the time. Additionally, if you wanted to test some higher level characters/dungeons, you can open up the console(~) in game and use the following commands:
- setMinCharacterLevel 1
- giveRenown 1000
- giveCoin 5000
You can change the numbers to whatever you want. For character level, anything between 1-40 is valid.
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Big thanks in advance for helping us playtest all these changes, we hope you enjoy them!
-Curious Panda Games