The Iron Oath News

Hey everyone,

The Fire and Ice 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.

You can use your current save on the test branch, but you will need to first copy over the file. Navigate to: "C:\Users\Your Name\AppData\LocalLow\Curious Panda Games\The Iron Oath", and copy your save file from the "saves" folder into the "testBranch_saves" folder.

Our hope is that we can push the update to the live branch later this week, but that will depend on how stable it is. If you do find any bugs while playing on this version, please report them in game from the menu. Aside from bug fixes, there will be a few more changes coming between this version and the final one, so not everything you see is fully finalized or polished just yet.



[h2]New additions[/h2]

• Icebinder Class: The Icebinder can now be recruited! Specializing in crowd control, the Icebinder has a wide range of abilities that allow him to summon ice pillars, freeze enemies, and support his allies.
  
• Scourge Crisis Event: We've added a new crisis event that occurs in the wake of the dragon's attack, introducing consequences and opportunities for the player.
  
• New Quests and Overworld Encounters: In relation to the above event, we've added new quests and overworld encounters that can only occur during the Scourge.
  
• Closing Void Breaches: Void Breaches are now physically present on the combat field, supplying enemy reinforcements until they are closed. In order to close a breach, players must move next to it and interact with it (left click).
  
• Enchantments: You can now obtain magical scrolls to enchant your gear with various stats and effects. There are currently 80 enchantments in total, divided across five rarities. The scrolls are consumed on use and the effects are permanently applied to gear, unless overwritten by another enchant. For now, they are only dropped from boss fights. In the 'Tales by the Fire' update later this year, there will be more varied ways to acquire them.
  
• Fleeing: If you find yourself in a dire situation, you can now flee from combat (so long as the mission allows). If you flee from combat within a dungeon, the dungeon will be aborted and you'll return to the overworld. We might change this mechanic later on, but for now this was the easiest implementation to avoid any potential abuse.
  

Thank you for your continued support and patience while waiting for the update - we do apologize for the delay in getting it out!





In other news, we're happy to announce our participation in the Tiny Teams festival starting today on Steam! It's an honor to be selected by them, and we encourage you to go check out some of the games from other small studios around the world!

-Curious Panda Games

Hey everyone!

As we're nearing the end of the month, we wanted to give you an update on when you can expect the Fire and Ice update to drop. Our original plan was to release it during the last week of June, but with the Summer Sale now taking place, we've decided to wait until the event ends to officially release it. You won't have to wait that long to try it out though, as we'll be moving it to the Public Test Branch in early July. In the meantime, we're doing a bit more testing and also adding the ability to flee from fights in dungeons and in the overworld.

We've also taken some time to rework our roadmap based on community feedback and what we felt needed to be addressed.



Following Fire and Ice, our next two major updates will be focused on improving combat, character leveling, and dungeon crawls. On the combat side of things, we'll be rebalancing some enemy stats, adding new enemy variants, and making support/utility abilities a more attractive and useful option. Our overall goal will be making enemies feel more unique, requiring you to use different strategies and tactics to deal with them.

Character leveling is another area that has been commonly brought up by the community. We'll be making changes to provide greater freedom when leveling your characters, resulting in more diverse builds. Some character traits will also be getting a balance pass so they have a greater impact on a character's strengths and weaknesses, making them a more important consideration when leveling up.

As always, we thank you for your support and feedback! We hope you're all as excited as we are about getting these changes into the game over the next few months!

-Curious Panda Games

Hey everyone,

We're just pushed out a minor patch with a few changes and fixes. This will likely be the last patch before the Fire and Ice update (more details coming a little later this month!).



[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Updated the look of the difficulty selection screen when starting a new campaign
  
• The Dead Walk time modifier now activates on just one combat event instead of all of them
  

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed a problem preventing users from being able to delete save files
  
• Fixed an issue with one of the Dreadknight's attacks potentially causing a softlock
  
• Fixed a bug where the Pugilist would still run away even after his passive negated the Fear condition
  
• The Combat Speed option now works correctly (speeding up character idle and run animations)
  

-Curious Panda Games

Hello mercenaries!

It's been just over a month since our release! Now that we've gotten the majority of bugfixes and QoL changes out of the way, we're currently working on our first major update called Fire and Ice, which will be available in June. We'll have an exact date for you as we get a little closer, but for now we wanted to share some extra details on what will be included in that update (and some more details beyond that).

[h3]New Class: Icebinder[/h3]


Our 7th class, the Icebinder, is a frost mage that specializes in crowd control. He has a wide range of abilities that allow him to summon ice pillars, freeze enemies, and support his allies.

• Arctic Armor: Apply a Damage Shield on an ally for 2 Rounds which also grants Frost Resistance and Immunity to Freeze.
  
• Cold Feet: Place an ice trap on a vacant cell. Targets that step on it take damage and are Rooted in place for 1 Round. If the condition is not cleansed, they will become Frozen on their next turn for 2 Rounds.
  
• Frostburst: Target an ice wall or frozen unit and channel for 5 turns, shattering the ice and damaging all adjacent targets.
  
• Frozen Tomb: Target self, ally or enemy and Freeze them for 2 Rounds, cleansing negative conditions. Targets are Immune to damage, but the ice can be destroyed.
  
• Ice Wall: Summon a destructible wall of ice on any cell that partially blocks line of sight. If the cell is occupied, the target is pushed away. Lasts until destroyed.
  
• Impaling Ice: Target up to 2 cells within range and damage the occupants, Slowing them for 1 Round, and applying Ice Terrain.
  

We'll be adding at least three more classes during Early Access that will expand the roster to 10. The ones currently planned are the Balladeer (healer), Executioner (tank), and Mystic (ranged support).

[h3]Improvements to the Scourge[/h3]
The Scourge and the dragon's arrival currently looks cool, but we want it to have more consequences and a larger impact on the world (and the player). In the Fire and Ice update, the dragon will attack a single city during the Scourge, spawning numerous void breaches in the county (as points of interest on the overworld). With the breaches active, the city will only have a short time before a demonic horde descends upon it - threatening to destroy it completely. Without spoiling too much, you can choose to lend a hand in various ways to potentially influence the outcome, or ignore the matter completely and leave the city to its fate.

In addition to the above, we'll have new quests and events related to the Scourge, along with new visuals for cities that have been attacked by the dragon.

[h3]Enchanting Gear[/h3]
Repairing gear was originally something we planned to introduce in our Fall Update (with the additions of Named and Legendary gear). But due to popular demand, we moved it up in our timetable. Enchanting is another feature related to that which we've decided to move up and include in our Spring Update, in an effort to provide more rewarding loot in dungeons (and progression for your characters).

With the update, you will be able to find magical scrolls within dungeons, which can then be applied to your gear to enchant it with various beneficial effects. Higher tier gear will have more slots for enchantments, allowing you to come up with unique combinations that best suit each of your characters.

[h3]Looking Ahead[/h3]
Our second major update, A Matter of Time, will be primarily focused on dungeons: adding new Time Modifiers and new Incenses that will give you more options when camping to help counteract the negative effects of time. Along with this, we'll be making improvements to dungeon exploration by adding new event types, and more events in general that will make dungeon crawls more interesting, varied, and rewarding.

Beyond that, we will be adding the final two tiers of the ability upgrade trees (and reworking a few of them in the process). Abilities themselves will be getting a balance pass to raise up some of the weaker and underutilized ones, giving you more viable choices when building your characters.

[h3]Suggestions and Feature Requests[/h3]
If there's anything you'd like to see in the game, you can suggest it on our FeatureBase page found here: https://theironoath.featurebase.app

We'll be prioritizing suggestions based on upvotes, so be sure to have a look through the list and vote on a few things you'd like to see!

----

We'll likely be pushing one more patch before the Fire and Ice update to fix some smaller issues, but beyond that we'll be focused on the update itself for the next few weeks.

Thanks for reading, and for your continued support - it means a lot to us! If you haven't yet, be sure to leave a Steam review, too!

-Curious Panda Games

Hey everyone!

Today's patch introduces some of the most requested features into the game such as repairing gear, and comparing gear from the market screen. Big thanks to everyone who helped us test the changes on our Public Test Branch.

Have a great weekend and we hope you all enjoy the update!



[h2]New additions[/h2]

• You can now repair gear from the management menu by using resources (such as Iron, Scrap, Wood, etc)
  
• Additionally, you can repair gear at a city's Market by spending coin (eventually this will be moved to a Blacksmith screen in the city)
  
• The Market screen now displays your roster and their gear, allowing you to easily compare gear in the market to what they have equipped
  
• Added a new UI element in the overworld to indicate when your next salary payment is due - you can hover this to see a detailed breakdown of all upcoming salary payments for the next year
  
• You can now set a frame rate cap in the video settings tab
  

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• The Blighted Hulk will no longer cause a crash if they charge into an ice pit hazard
  
• Fixed a typo in the skeleton revive warning - it now will say 'Revives in 1 Round' instead of 'Revives in 1 Turn'
  
• Fixed a bug that occurred when opening the customization screen for a character from the party select screen prior to entering a dungeon
  
• The Hunger time modifier now works as described and characters lose Morale for every traversed tile, not Loyalty
  
• Burn immunity now properly works on units designated with it (like Charions)
  
• You can no longer click to attack an enemy with a taunted character (there was a very small window where it was possible to do so in addition to the forced attack from the taunt)
  
• While in dungeons, closing the provisions menu while hovering over an ability will no longer make the tooltip get stuck on screen
  
• Fixed an issue where resources in towns were not being saved properly
  
• Fixed an issue where you could reset an item's durability in a dungeon if you saved/loaded and then re-equipped the item
  
• Fixed a visual bug where it appeared that a character was being duplicated when completing the Strength and Numbers quest
  
• Fixed a bug where enemy channels weren't properly being interrupted from push/pull effects
  
• Culling Blades (spawned by the Spectral Reaper) now have a tooltip
  
• The level up icon on portraits should now always be clickable when visible
  
• Temporary ice terrain should now expire properly
  
• Fixed an issue with the dungeon provision menu where your target's health bar wouldn't properly show when moving between portraits
  
• Modified some logic around AI and being taunted to hopefully fix any lingering issues that could lead to a softlock
  
• Certain patrol quests should no longer show a cave icon instead of the typical patrol battle marker
  
• If every enemy in a battle and every player character is channeling the game will no longer soft lock
  
• Gear durability will no longer be shown as a fraction after taking the Forging company upgrade
  
• The Valkyrie's Skewer ability now properly shows the damage preview when targeting enemies
  
• When running into an encounter on the overworld that leads to a battle, it will no longer erroneously reference an unrelated quest that's not associated with the event
  

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• The frame rate during the boot sequence is now capped to prevent certain issues
  
• Duplicate resources are now stacked in the Market
  
• The tooltips of all City Events have been updated to show all the modifiers associated with it
  
• Any City Event that affects the market will trigger an automatic update to prices and goods available
  
• With repairing now in place, the 'Forging' upgrade has been reduced to 20%, 35%, 50% (from 50%, 75%, 100%)
  
• When a character is wearing gear that has 0 durability, an icon shows on their portrait
  
• If a character dies, the durability of their gear will drop to 0
  
• If all party members die, their gear will be lost
  
• Added buttons to 'Apply' and 'Undo' when researching company upgrades
  
• Added a maximum stack count for items in storage (this won't take effect for existing items)
  
• Moved the Deployment Phase graphic at the start of combat so it no longer covers your target's health bar
  
• The Gear Breakdown section of the Expedition Summary window now sorts by lowest durability at the top
  

[h2]Balance[/h2]

• When a new Time Modifier is applied, your party will now lose 10 Morale instead of 5 (it was too easy to maintain full Morale - we'll likely be making more adjustments to Morale gains/losses in the future)
  
• You can no longer ambush, or be ambushed by bosses (ambushing a boss could make a difficult fight trivial, and being ambushed by one was extremely punishing)
  

[h2]Notes[/h2]

• Resources and items in cities might be incorrect until the cities refresh (this might take a few months of in-game time)
  
• Old gear from previous saves should be updated to reflect new changes (they should also have full durability)