Alaloth - Champions of The Four Kingdoms News

Hello Champions!

Just a quick update to inform you that we are pretty confident about releasing the major update with strongholds before leaving for GamesCom. We initially targeted the end of the month to release it but you know we are fast, and we are testing the feature right now so we'll hopefully be able to deliver next week. The update will come with a new round of balancing and misc improvements that will be detailed before the patch of course. Two more important info: we are going to release a new patch today or tomorrow too, because we are updating Unity to a new version right now. We were using an old version of the engine because it was super safe and we've waited for a new one with the same stability to make the move. Of course, even if we are testing everything right now, a few issues could occurr but in case, once again, don't panic. We are here to fix everything if needed. The new engine version is needed on our side to include a new set of tools to gather data and info that will be crucial in the next months, for balancing and improvements. We should be able to unveil a few community-related features as well, involving players on our Discord server. Anyone helping us with the development and contributing to the community itself, just helping others or simply contributing with your suggestions, will be rewarded with gifts and perks. More info to come! GamesCom will be pivotal for our future plans, so expect big news in September. While a couple of heroes will be in Cologne [Alberto and Giulia], the whole studio will take a short break the same week. This means that this will be probably the only week of the year in which the game will not be updated. We'll be available 24/7 as usual on our channels but the guys are going to recharge batteries after this super crazy summer in which everyone gave 110% for the EA launch. In case of emergency [catastrophic events or such], we'll find a way to fix as usual so, no worries anyway.

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https://store.steampowered.com/app/919360/Alaloth_Champions_of_The_Four_Kingdoms/

[h2]CHANGELOG[/h2]

• Typos in “General Vendors” and “Traits” tutorial sections have been fixed, so as some typos in Codex descriptions
  
• Deity codex entries will now be unlocked correctly, as intended, depending on the chosen deity during the Character Creation phase
  
• Heater Shield’s size has been reduced to the proper one
  
• Black Heart, Cleaverocks, Brystead Lookout walkable areas have been improved (some invisible obstacles have been removed)
  
• Companions Revive interaction sometimes was not disappearing after reviving companions, now fixed. Other mixed issues related to the Revive mechanic have been fixed, and the issue that caused interactable objects to be no more interactable should be fixed too
  
• Repair costs have been lowered compared to the last patch after last iterations
• “Artifact found” notification text has been fixed
  
• Karak-Hohn Reputation Quest Reward for Home Under The Mountain quest has been changed into King Under the Mountain
  

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Hello Champions!

It's a rainy Sunday here and we would like to drop a super quick note about the latest hotfix released on Friday. As you know, we are super fast with bug fixing and this is the most important thing we've considered when we started thinking about the long term plans for the game. We've released 10+ patches so far and i think nobody in the world can say a thing about our availability here or on our social, trying to solve as much problems as possible when they pop-up. We are proud of the work done, and we would say that we've always pushed the EA launch as something different from the usual EA launches. We don't have a vertical slice of the product to iterate, we have a fully playable product that needs to be iterated, polished and balanced to became what we had in mind since the very beginning. No game breaking bugs, no crashes, solid builds: we can say that all of this is real and again, proud of this and happy to know that players appreciated it. By the way, all of this does not mean that we have done with the development of course. We've updated the game trying to keep game saves safe everytime [and we'll continue like this], we've updated the game testing stuff on our internal branch and we've updated the game keeping in mind what we said above. A solid build to play is a must for us, and this is not going to change, but it's important to remind that development is a pain and sometime we can't simply know what is going to happen with the implementation of new features. The last patch was basically built around a first round of economy balancing that will be completed tomorrow. Two weeks ago we've put in the revive for companions. Yesterday we've receveid a few messages complaining about both things so it was worth claryfing once again what's going to happen next.



The revive feature was working fine when patched. We've worked on the feature this week too, and apparently the last update caused some regression. A few players experienced crashes or have been forced to restart the game trying to revive companions or trying to interact with them once gone. Crashes or no chances to interact with items/loot chests in FA, are directly connected to this, we are going to fix this tomorrow. The other economy-related issue is the one about repair costs and durability. We've increased durability for items on Friday, we are going to release the [almost] final iteration tomorrow. Repair costs will be lowered [by now, they are lower than the costs we had at release] and a first bunch of items will get their real in-game value. Remember that is never about a single feature but we are talking about connected systems. The problem with the repair cost is that the value of the items is still wrong and super high, compared to the money available in loots, quests and so on [even because right now, the sellling price for items have been decreased and we've iterated loots and rewards as well]. In both cases and for future patches, please, don't panic :) . "The game is broken" or "The last patch destroyed everthing" or stuff like that is non sense now, because bugs can happen at this stage, even if we had no significant tech issues since launch. And we are aware in real time of things gone wrong in case. Regression is pretty normal, we usually talk about what we do before and after a patch note and we build and fix at speed of light. Our idea was to update twice per week when possible but to avoid issues like this, we are probably going to patch on Thursday instead of Friday, to avoid scary weekends like this and let you play safe. Thank you for the support as usual, Major Update on the way soon! Have a great Sunday!

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https://store.steampowered.com/app/919360/Alaloth_Champions_of_The_Four_Kingdoms/

[h2]CHANGELOG[/h2]

• Tutorial has been updated to explain Revive in coop sessions with companions
  
• Night/Day cycle is now properly explained and a new tutorial window is available in Codex
  
• When all the human-controlled companions are dead in a FA, the player takes back full control on zoom
• New barks for companions entering/leaving a hurt state have been implemented, so as for when they die.ì
  
• The revive option in coop is much clear now with a green filler visible on hold when helping a companion
  
• Revive will now be interrupted and reset when the player's poise breaks
• Fixed a bug making barks visually overlapping
  
• Fixed a bug in the quest “A Woe of a Stubborn Dwarf” preventing completion
  
• Fixed a bug that was preventing some barks to be properly shown in certain combat contexts
  
• Fixed a bug that was making some floating texts wrongly positioning in certain combat contexts.
  
• Wandering Characters won’t spawn anymore after the ritual in Dremadea, unless the player did complete their respective quests, as intended
• Fixed a bug that was preventing the resolution setting to show all supported resolutions (UHD)
  
• Eagle Blade now renamed to Windweaver.
  
• Lileah will now avoid casting her spell when the party doesn’t need healing
• The giant undead summoned by Kariasha is now really giant, as intended
  
• “Windback Hearts” Quest Giver in Bardushel will now correctly spawn from phase 2 onwards
  
• Moonvale navmesh has been fixed (the big plant on the main path is no more an obstacle to players’ movement)
  
• Alaloth life bar is now properly displayed at the beginning of the final fight. Max HP are just reduced if Ahromon and Ilzeborth have been previously killed
• Nhulbarar water is now properly displayed, also in the overview mode
  
• Proofreading and typos correction always ongoing (i,e, Ballek’Mahl now properly written in Tavern, Khoran properly written without double “h”, etc)
  
• Repairing cost has been iterated as part of the general economy balance work, and is now higher than before, proportionally to the item vale
• Selling cost has been iterated as part of the general economy balance work, and is now lower than before, proportionally to the item value
• Durability of all items has been iterated. Almost any item/weapons/armor has now a x2/x3 value
• Various fixes helping performance with potato hardware
  

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https://store.steampowered.com/app/919360/Alaloth_Champions_of_The_Four_Kingdoms/

Hello Champions!

Time flies and here we are again, one month later, with a new general update about Alaloth's developmnent! When we posted this just one week after the release, we were over the moon and we were still absorbing what was happening all around us, just putting pieces togheter to plan things at the best. Since the Early Access launched, we've gathered tons of feedbacks and we've released 10 patches to improve the game [the last one yesterday, check the changelog here]. We sat down and shared the first draft of the development roadmap, and we can't wait to show you the cool things we are cooking here. The good news is that Strongholds are almost ready so even if we scheduled the update for August, this will probably happen before GamesCom and all of this will let us work properly on full Mouse & Keyboard support, that is still missing menu navigation at the mo. We've done with the new areas too for the first map update, so we are going to dress these areas asap, filling them with new NPC, quests and so on. The first round of reviews for quests is almost done and we've finalized a bunch with the latest update. Something like 20 still need a bit of refinment [final rewards, proofreading, etc.] but we'll be able to move on by the end of the next week. Weapons, armors, items will be the focus of the very first round of balancing on our dev branch, along with the in-game economy. We've just done very small changes to numbers in the past month, but it was something expected. We collected tons of data [thank you so much for this] and we had the chance to work on some tools that will be very useful for us to debug and polish the proper way. We have now a full working analytics sys telling us about every single iteration with every single in-game object/place/char and so on, so we will be able to tune things using both your feeds and data at the best. We've even created a new tool that will be available next week, dumping automatically when an issue occurs. This will save extra time on both sides, allowing us to spot problems that could be invisible in a standard run. Back to gameplay-related stuff: companions and champions will follow the first round of changes, along with skills and traits. Lot of fun ahead on the design side.

The team in full wearing our amazing armor sets. And cats. Cats everywhere.

Moving to different topics: we are working on many community-related features and we are on the hunt for a Community Manager and Mods for our Discord server [covering US timezones]. As you know, it's basically two people handling everything on our board here now, while checking all the other channels all around the web. We love the discussions we are having with players and we could say that it is way beyond our expectations, with interesting chats and super constructive feeds. The only thing that we would like to remind, as the one and only community rule, is the respect for people, both users and from the dev team. Respect is due. We are always on to discuss, and I think we can proudly say that our availability could be considered a key point for the Early Access. We really try to answer every single message on any channel but sometime it's hard so we ask you to help us with this once again. We are on Steam 24/24 but for real time iterations, Discord stays as the main point of contact, because it's the tool we use to work and the hub we are developing to develop the community itself. We are working on a super cool program to enjoy life on the server with a stand-alone economy sys, that will let you being rewarded with a few cool perks [including games, phisycal goodies and more]. A dedicated updated will be posted soon, but it was worth to mention! We'll be back with some lore-related post next week, enjoy the weekend! Oh, Alaloth has been among top grossing games on Steam in the first two weeks of July. No need to say that this has been epic. considering one year of silence, no marketing budget and a release set in nearly one month of work. Nope, we are not suddenly rich but we'll have the chance to plan things in a way that was not possible until last May, after a long period of blood and pain. You can bet we'll deliver the game we've always had in mind since the very beginning btw. GamesCom is on the way, decisions will be taken after the event. Brace yourself [again]: winter is coming!

Share the love and stay tuned!

[h3]Follow our official channels to stay up to date:[/h3]
Like Alaloth on Facebook Follow Alaloth on Twitter Check out our Steam page



https://store.steampowered.com/app/919360/Alaloth_Champions_of_The_Four_Kingdoms/