Ruinarch News

Hello everyone! It's been about a month since launch. It wasn't a very smooth ride to say the least but we've taken the feedback seriously. We hope the changes added on this new update is a great step towards a more positive player experience.


Based on recent feedback, the current overall progression and Victory Condition is not enjoyable for some players, particularly those Early Access players who preferred the previous versions. We're reintroducing varied Victory Conditions to accommodate different preferences.
Eradication

This is for new Ruinarch players and those who prefer a more sandbox and quicker gameplay. The goal is to simply wipe out hostile Villagers. The player starts with a bigger but fixed loadout based on chosen Archetype. There is no Portal upgrade in this mode but players can still obtain some powers from other Archetypes through Portal Release or by sacrificing Cultists.

This is a fairly easy and laid-back mode (except for Puppetmaster) that's also great if you just want to play around and experiment. Retaliation is disabled. Migration has also been tweaked so that there is a fixed number of Villagers that will arrive at a fixed repeating schedule. Demonic Tiles, Walls and Decors still have limited charges but have no Spirit Energy cost.

Progression

This is for players who want a longer and slower-paced gameplay. The goal is to upgrade the Portal to Level 7. The player starts with a small loadout based on chosen Archetype and must upgrade the Portal by getting Spirit Energy to obtain more Powers.

Attainment

This is the previous Victory Condition which is best suited for experienced Ruinarch players. The goal is to complete 13 Tasks. Like in Progression, the player starts with a small loadout based on chosen Archetype and must upgrade the Portal to obtain more Powers. There are various Tasks that they can complete to win the game.


We've added 4 new powers to expand the player's control over events.

Refresh - This is a new Puppetmaster ability that will replenish a target's Needs.
Gloom - This is a new Lich ability that afflicts the target with a temporary Gloomy status that reduces their Mood.
Clear Village - This is an ability available to all Archetypes that would allow the player to wipe out an empty Village.
Found Faction - This is an ability available to all Archetypes that would allow the player to force a vagrant Villager to create a new Faction.



One other major complaint since launch is the slow and nerfed feeling compared to previous Early Access iterations. We've introduced significant reworks to improve on this as well as other balance tweaks:

• Mana cap is now set to 600. In addition, Mana now regenerates 70 every half hour so the base hourly gain has been increased from 100 to 140.
  
• Mana Pit now increases the cap by 100 and increases the hourly gain by 60. It's build cost has also been increased to 600. There will only be 1 Mana Pit at most available for all Victory Conditions.
  
• When player upgrades a Power, its Mana Cost now gets reduced rather than increased. Most also gain additional charges on the 2nd or 3rd upgrade and have their Cooldown reduced.
  
• Hellspawn now only spawns 1 Imp on Level 1 and 2 Imps on Level 2.
  
• Stampede has been completely reworked. It now generates a line of monsters that will damage and will knockout characters on its path. It doesn't deal a lot of damage but it's great for stopping a group of targets such as a party on its way to attack your territory.
  
• Lure is now already available on Lvl 1 Manifest Food.
  
• Finger of Death's Cooldown and Mana Costs have been significantly increased.
  
• Lvl 3 and 4 Zap will cause a Villager to forget recently witnessed unreported crimes. This was added as a means to prevent a character from reporting a crime.
  
• Protection now increases all Resistances by the same amount: Lvl 1 - 20, Lvl 2 - 30, Lvl 3 - 40, Lvl 4 - 50.
  
• Heal values have been adjusted: Lvl 1 - 50%, Lvl 2 - 65%, Lvl 3 - 80%, Lvl 4 - 100%.
  
• Empower's damage increase has been adjusted: Lvl 1 - 50%, Lvl 2 - 65%, Lvl 3 - 80%, Lvl 4 - 100%.
  

- Villagers will no longer visit other Villages that are too far away.
- Reduced Village preference of building additional Dwellings if there are still a couple or more unoccupied Dwellings.
- Reduced Cultist Kit cost to 2.
- Demon Cultists will no longer perform Dark Rituals when it can no longer produce Chaos Orbs.
- Villagers will now more frequently use run speed on various actions.
- Angry characters are now less likely to attack random objects while doing important tasks.
- Ratmen will no longer relocate to a cave that already has a mine of an active Village.
- Villagers regenerate more HP when eating.
- A Villager that attacks an unpunished Criminal will be less likely to be accused of Assault.
- Even smaller negative opinion change may now cause Villagers a small chance to retaliate with various actions such as poisoning food, placing traps, burning home or spreading rumors.
- Burnt now only lasts for 24 hours and can be removed on a Hospice.
- Burning tiles will revert to its original state after 48 hours.
- Tiles replaced by structures will also revert to its original state after 24 hours once the structure has been destroyed.
- Vents can now be picked up using Seize Object.
- Displayed Drain Values of Feeble, Ravenous and Forlorn Spirits on its tooltip.
- Spire upgrade texts have been reworked so that upgraded effects replace previous ones instead of being added as a separate line.
- Added visual effect when structures are destroyed.


- [FIXED] Combatants carrying Resource Piles ignore hostiles on sight.
- [FIXED] Vampires sometimes refuse to drink blood even when there are valid options nearby.
- [FIXED] Monsters spawned by a Monster Spawner that has been instructed to snatch a target may sometimes ignore rescuing Villagers.
- [FIXED] Temporary Status Effects on characters that were seized may stay on them permanently.
- [FIXED] Small Spiders may sometimes no longer grow into a Giant Spider after being seized by the player.
- [FIXED] A seized Monster Spawner may sometimes no longer spawn any more monsters when placed back on land.
- [FIXED] Snatch Party may be unable to take its target if some other character is already performing an action on it.
- [FIXED] A paralyzed character who becomes heartbroken will refuse to entertain self very frequently.
- [FIXED] You can bypass the 1 prisoner per prison limit via Snatch.
- [FIXED] A Ratman may still try to abduct a character that is already a prisoner of the Ratman faction.
- [FIXED] Monsters gain gold when completing player instructed actions.
- [FIXED] You can still trigger a Critical Break on incapacitated characters.
- [FIXED] If a criminal knocks out a Villager trying to apprehend them, they may try to help them back up.
- [FIXED] Ravager Archetype is missing Empower in its initial loadout.
- [FIXED] Ratmen may place blueprints when they occupy a Village.
- [FIXED] Psychopaths may sometimes bury their victim inside Village structures.
- [FIXED] Lure sometimes does not work if the produced Food is inside a Village.
- [FIXED] A Demon Cult leader declares war if you tell them that you have imprisoned one of their loved ones.
- [FIXED] Camera may get stuck after triggering a Critical Break. Can't zoom in, pan or move in any way.
- [FIXED] Poison cloud shows HP bar when hit by other damage spells.
- [FIXED] Character context menu Charge Values may not refresh on reload.
- [FIXED] Demonic Structures can get pulled out by a Tornado.
- [FIXED] A druid may try to neutralize a Tornado that is no longer in the game.
- [FIXED] Sometimes unable to switch tab in Villagers UI.
- [FIXED] Missing Necromancer dead sprite.

Hello! There seems to be a misunderstanding regarding our switch from Early Access to 1.0. This doesn't mean an end to the development but merely a state where most features are in stable condition and updates will be at a slightly slower pace. This has caused a significant amount of negative reviews so we wanted to make sure we address the situation in a more timely manner.

We were supposed to split dev work on May, one on the new project while another continues work on Ruinarch. But in order to much more quickly improve the game, we have instead decided to extend full development of Ruinarch a bit more. For the next update, we'll be working on new content and tweaks instead of focusing on mod support like originally planned. Please expect our first post-launch sometime in the middle of June.

In the meantime, here are a few more bug fixes and tweaks:


- [FIXED] Saving gets stuck forever. NOTE: There can be multiple causes of this. Please submit a bug report if you still encounter something similar after this update.
- [FIXED] All characters stopped moving due to a pathfinding issue related to extra large maps.
- [FIXED] NullReference error triggered when a Villager attempts to remove Cursed status from a Villager that was cursed by touching a mummified body.
- [FIXED] Lesser Demons get trapped if a Prison is built on top of them.
- [FIXED] Player's defenders have limited roam area.
- [FIXED] Visitors from a different faction may wake up knocked-out berserked Villagers.
- [FIXED] Gaining excess charges of Imp if there are 2 or more Imp Huts.
- [FIXED] Various Alert tutorial bug fixes.


- Vagrants will no longer roam too far from their current location.
- Monsters that kidnap or hunt will also no longer hunt distant targets.
- CONTINUE button should not be enabled if the latest Saved Game is no longer compatible with the current game version.

Hello everyone! We would like to apologize for the subpar 1.0 release. We definitely needed a bit more time to test the enormous amount of little tweaks we added in this update. We've spent the last few days squashing major bugs and we'll be doing more fixes over the coming days.

We notice and acknowledge the significant number of negative reviews. Honestly, a lot of these are valid complaints. In hindsight, we now recognize the current state does not meet many players expectations and we should have considered extending our Early Access phase rather than rushing 1.0. We are discussing what we should do next about these player concerns and we hope to remedy the situation as much as we can.

For now, we have a hotfix that should resolve some critical bugs:
- [FIXED] Game stuck on saving due to memory cleanup.
- [FIXED] Game freeze related to factions with Blood Sacrifice ideology.
- [FIXED] Placing a Triton in a Kennel triggers an error, which prevents the related Achievement from being completed.
- [FIXED] Character may get stuck due to a Psychopath victim profiling error.
- [FIXED] Characters may get stuck if the criminal they are hunting is already in a tombstone.
- [FIXED] Some destroyed cave walls may still be considered impassable by characters.
- [FIXED] Cult Towns do not summon Bone Golems.
- [FIXED] Demon Cultist's Hospice has impassable entrance.

[h3]Tweaks[/h3]
- Aside from the Cult Leader, other cultists can now also summon the Bone Golem.
- Added a toggle for Autosave. For now, we disabled this by default while improving the its execution time on bigger maps.
- Adjusted Eat costs so they are less likely to eat other people's Food.

Thank you everyone for supporting Ruinarch during its Early Access phase! We're now at the point where there won't be any major revamp or additions to the game's core structure so we feel it's the perfect time to call this our 1.0. There's still plenty of space to introduce more content though, so while we intend to focus on developing our next game soon, we still intend to push some updates for Ruinarch over the coming months.

For now, here's what we've added for 1.0:


7 new Faction Ideologies have been added to the game. You may discover some Factions having one or more of these flavorful ideologies when certain conditions are met.

• Entkin - Nearby trees will randomly turn into Ents that will join and defend their villages.
  
• Blood Sacrifices - Leaders will occasionally sacrifice a Villager to gain temporary buffs for the entire Village
  
• Golem Makers - Occasionally produces Golems to defend their village.
  
• Mage Guild - All combatants are Mages.
  
• Necromantic - Allied with the Undead. Reanimates as Undead upon death.
  
• Beastmasters - All Villagers can tame beasts.
  
• Infested - Villagers spawn Abominations upon death.
  

Previously, the player has to consume charges to summon Lesser Demons and Minions inside their territory for defense. To improve the process, whenever the player gains a Lesser Demon or Minion charge, they are already automatically spawned inside their territory. They will roam around and defend the base until they are used for Raid or Snatch parties - making defense significantly simpler. This should also mean that all the player's minion charges automatically serve as defenders until they are used. Only Raid and Snatch parties will consume these charges.


The player can now instruct monsters spawned by Monster Spawners to perform a special action. The special action available depends on the Monster Spawner's Landmark type. These are fairly similar to the player's raid and snatch actions. The following are available:

• Snatch a Villager
  
• Kill a Villager
  
• Destroy Supplies of a Village
  
• Destroy Structures of a Village
  
• Harass Villagers
  
• Destroy Village Defenses
  

Added the following monsters to the pool:

• Goblin - snatches villagers and plants goblin seeds on them. the target will die after a few hours and spawn more goblins from their corpses.
  
• Splatter - a cat/reptile beast that explodes upon death
  
• Dwarf King - highly resistant to Normal and Mental attacks
  
• Dwarf Paladin - highly resistant to Normal and Mental attacks
  

If we have the time later, we'd like to give Dwarf characters expanded roles in the game.


This was supposed to be a part of our first post-launch update but we wanted to begin the process early and at least provide initial simple modding support on 1.0. For now, we had time to support the following:

• reskin existing monsters
  
• reskin existing villager classes
  
• rename monsters and adjust stat values
  
• rename villager class and adjust stat values
  
• replace monster portraits
  
• replace human and elven portraits pool
  

You may refer to this documentation for guidelines on how to create Mods for the game.

We still plan on having our next update focused on substantially expanding our modding support.


Controller support is now available for the game.



Portuguese translation is also now available!


- Portal progression for all 3 Archetypes have been significantly changed. The first few levels are now much quicker to reach. Also, more Powers are unlocked per level, giving the player an overall bigger repertoire than before.
- Removed Str and Int and turned it into a single attribute to represent a character's Base Damage. In the character Info tab, a Power field displays the character's relative strength as computed from its Base Damage and Attack Speed. It replaces Str, Int and Attack Speed.
- Paralyzed Villagers can now also choose to sing for to recover Fun.
- Paralyzed Villagers may now decide to just sleep on the floor when they are exhausted.
- Vampires no longer get full when they are fed normal food. They will also get Sick afterwards and will have resentment towards the person that fed them.
- Criminals trying to flee a Faction will usually no longer engage in combat. Apprehenders will attempt to run after a fleeing Criminal for only a short distance.
- Adjusted placement of Villages in the world. In general, this should mean Villages can spawn in more locations compared to before.
- Slightly increased chance that Humanoid and Demonic monsters would become Faction Leader successor even if there are other sapient Villagers available.
- Anxious villagers will now initiate non-lethal combat if they decide to fight. They previously used to enter lethal combat.
- Shock upon seeing someone have a Narcoleptic Attack will only occur once for that person.
- Shock upon seeing a demonic structure will only occur once per villager.
- Villagers now prioritize crafting clothing over weapon.
- Villagers may now build blueprints and chance classes outside work hours.
- Murder assumption will no longer occur if the dead character is a wanted criminal.
- Villagers that do not have Agoraphobia are now more likely to visit homes of Friends and Close Friends in the same Village.
- Agoraphobic characters will exclude their own pets from crowd count.
- Agoraphobic Necromancers will exclude all skeletons from crowd count.
- Villagers that are unable to return to their work structure for more than 2 days will automatically be "fired".
- Kleptomaniacs may now also steal from Friends. Previously, they exclude both Friends and Close Friends as steal targets.
- Demonic Walls and Decorations can now be built on adjacent non-corrupted tiles. This will also auto-build a corrupted tile.
- Significantly reduced chance of a villager dying from Overheating.
- Level 3 and 4 of Music Hater now causes the character to get Enraged when hearing music.
- Updated Expel cooldown values.
- Updated Seize Villager, Seize Monster and Seize Object upgrade values.
- Updated Protection upgrade values.
- Reduced Mana Costs of upgraded Tornado.
- Increased movement speed of Locust Swarm.
- Wisps are now Aggressive.
- During Vampire Hunt, villagers won't accuse each other after midnight if the village is currently in an Under Siege state.
- During Vampire Hunt, the likelihood of accusing others of being a vampire after midnight depends on the mood of the character.
- If a character is Hemophiliac, they will allow themself to be knocked out by a Vampire and fed upon even if they are Vigilant.
- A Hemophobic and Vigilant character will feel Enraged if a Vampire attempted to knock them out for feeding.
- Combatants will attempt to knockout Berserked characters. Non-combatants will react warily.
- Reduced the number required to complete some of the Goal Tasks.
- Reduced the Mana Cost of all Prism events to 500.
- Weapon and armor effects have been updated.
- Empty landmarks may now spawn more varied monster types.
- Increased damage of Tank Zombies, Revenants and Wyverns.
- Increased HP and damage of Ifrit.
- Slaves can now produce food from Forage structures if it is nearby.
- Starving villagers may now decide to eat Food they do not own. How likely this occurs depend on the character's traits and current mood. If somebody else owns it, this action will be considered as Theft.
- When a Villager flees a cave attached to their Village's Mine, they will post an Exterminate Quest so that the cave can be cleared of hostiles soon.
- Watcher Eye can now be spawned on tiles with unimportant objects such as trees, rocks, flowers and trash.
- Watcher Eye range has been increased.
- Parties may begin Exterminate Quest even if only 1 member joins the quest.
- Migration settings will now assume Portal is Level 4 if Omnipotent setting is On.
- Reduced Stone cost of Dwellings from 60 to 40.
- Reduced chance of characters stumbling badly due to Wet.
- Visit and Dig actions will no longer have log entries.
- Removed Beastmaster trait from Barbarian.
- Added various character Info tooltips.
- Performance and memory leak improvements.


- [FIXED] Landmarks can be generated right next to each other.
- [FIXED] Villagers that simultaneously want to purchase the same Food pile can take the object from each other and get accused of theft.
- [FIXED] Villagers may sometimes not travel to Forage spots for food even if they should be able to.
- [FIXED] Paralyzed characters do not enter the bed when they are dropped on it to sleep.
- [FIXED] A Kleptomaniac's steal action made due to Trigger Flaw is always caught by the victim.
- [FIXED] Locust Swarm slows down when cursor is nearby.
- [FIXED] Trigger Arousal only works when both of the couples involved have available beds.
- [FIXED] Incorrect Choose World Map Size setting tooltips.
- [FIXED] Non-combatants may sometimes ignore snatchers and raiders.
- [FIXED] Un-upgraded Music Hater does not get angry when hearing music.
- [FIXED] Vampires should not target pets and other monsters for Vampiric Embrace.
- [FIXED] Bandit Leader may get stuck building a Bandit Camp if it is located at the edge of the map.
- [FIXED] Logs window does not update if active character has no logs to show
- [FIXED] A Necromancer with Agoraphobia was scared of his own army of skeletons.
- [FIXED] Monsters sometimes change to Villager classes when they are in a Major Faction.
- [FIXED] Agitated monsters may target characters inside the player's Prison.
- [FIXED] Villagers are unable to do some urgent actions while socializing or visiting other villages.
- [FIXED] Unbuilt Ward Lights trigger Under Siege state of the Village.
- [FIXED] Ratmen get stuck because of erroneous Under Siege mechanics.
- [FIXED] Prism's Bandit Camp requirement criteria does not activate even if the condition has already been met.
- [FIXED] Dwelling structure walls looked burnt but were full of HP when the game started.
- [FIXED] Some elven homes cause pathfinding issues.
- [FIXED] NullError encountered if a monster starts working on a farm.

[h2]Known Issue[/h2]
We've discovered a strange pathfinding issue that only occurs on the live build of the game. Some cave walls may sometimes not update as passable even after it gets destroyed. We'll be working on a hotfix for this as soon as we figure out the root cause.

[h2]Looking Ahead[/h2]
We'll be spending the next few days on further bug fixing and smaller tweaks with a plan to do another small update at the end of the week. Afterwards, we'll allot time for more mod support and introduce some more interesting Villager interactions as part of our first post-launch update around the middle of June.

We're happy to announce that Ruinarch version 1.0 will be available on April 24th on Steam after nearly 3 years in Steam Early Access!



We're adding partial mod support, more faction ideologies, more monsters, performance improvement and some improved QoL changes.

We're thankful for all players who took a chance in us and purchased the game while it was in Early Access. We'll continue supporting the game for a while longer after 1.0 releases while also looking forward to showing you what's next from the team!