Trawel News

v0.8.b_8 has been released to beta, v0.8.b_7 pushed to default.
Report issues and bugs in the steam forums.

[h3]On Announcement Naming:[/h3]
It occurs to me that it isn't Summer everywhere*, but also more significantly the seasonal boundary was crossed. There isn't much 2023 left overall, so I've changed it from 'Summer 2023' to just 2023.
Somewhat unrelated I regret numbering the versions and sprints in different indexing schemes, hence dropping that as well. They were both only one off anyway, and I don't foresee that changing anytime soon, even if I do hotfixes.
*citation needed
[h3]Notes[/h3]
Now, on with the Patch Notes:

• Arenas received updates, the menu is modern, and there has been a major behavioral change around time. You can no longer take part in fights that are super far off, preventing accidentally advancing time. Instead, you can wait 24 hours at a time, even when there is a fight soon. The new rematches include NPCs that fought without you being there (which now happens if you don't make a bout), and they will leave after they train and level up enough.
  
• Furthermore, multi-round arenas now once again simulate all the rounds, even the ones you don't see. This used to be a mechanic before Trawel was even a game, but it was simplified into faking it at some point. They can take rematchers as contestants, but never in the first round against a player, to force the game to give the player a chance if they have (probably unwittingly) fed an NPC.
  
• Lot menu has been updated as well, and the behavior of collecting money from owned features has been standardized and the values have been tweaked.
  
• All features can now support fluff intro/outro text. Right now this is mostly used for named Inns and Stores, but some Doctors, Libraries, and other features use it as well. This can be disabled as a display setting.
  
• Saves no longer display sub-second values, and display day of week and timezone instead.
  
• Autosaves now occur within node exploration features. They do not occur in any other feature, and like with normal autosaves, it will only check once you enter a scene. In this case, this is having the node menu display.
  
• Lances, Drudger fishing spears, and Drudger anchors updated to have their own attack stances. This means that only Shovels and fists (for flesh golems) need migration to the new attack system. Unicorn horns will likely use lances as their base forever.
  
• Tactics have been broadened to allow for attack effects outside of skill usage. No attacks are set to currently do this due to AI balance concerns, but Takedown was added as another effect.
  
• A few new skills such as Twinned Takedown and updated Counter.
  
• Two new archetypes, Hired Hatchet and Fighting Fury.
  
• Archetypes now come with 2 skills + tactics/skill stance/3rd skill, as well as stats. Previous player-capable archetypes adjusted. Archmage archetype remains distinct.
  
• More fluff insults added to the species of Trawel to try to give the world a sense of history.
  
• As always major but unnoticeable bugs like materials that didn't have weapons never being rolled for armors; as well as more impactful niche bugs like deleting but not replacing skill configurations leading to oddness.
  

dragon out o7

v0.8.b_7 has been released to beta, v0.8.b_6 pushed to default.
Report issues and bugs in the steam forums.

Unfortunately, this sprint saw several developmental blockers, like the wiring in the main PC falling apart and Java 17 resisting (very successfully).

The pace of updates has also been slowing down overall, so unless something changes, expect them to be closer to two weeks instead of one week.

The former has been dealt with but Trawel is still stuck on Java 8, for now.

Sad Patch Notes:

• Changed the way the game saves. This may have been a downgrade, the main intention was to allow updating to Java 17+, and that is still out of reach, so this might need to be reverted if saving has new issues.
  
• Node Features display 'inward and outward' to show if you are moving away from or toward the entrance in most cases- this is technically just displaying the 'floor', but in all current Node Shapes besides Tower, that is just how far away from the entrance you are.
  
• All Eoano towns (besides one intentionally left out town) have town lore snippets now. Hemo and Beal had their map location moved a bit to make more thematic sense.
  

Hopefully next sprint will be more fruitful, dragon out o7

v0.8.b_6 has been released to beta, v0.8.b_5 pushed to default.
Report issues and bugs in the steam forums.

Known Issues Updates: Currency rewards in node features are still mostly out of date, but exploration features did get fixed. There are still a few unintentionally unbalanced multifights in the game, such as wolf packs.

Partial Changelog:

• As always, misc unreported bug fixes.
  
• Steam Achievements received a quality pass, and several were added, along with new leaderboard items.
  
• World updates ('WorldGen'):
  
  1. Eoano gained 2 connecting towns on existing islands, 1 whole new island with 3 towns, and larger focus on lore and thematic design, including tweaking what features exist in many current towns.
     
  2. Greap got less attention than Eoano but was still changed, plan is to focus on its status as 'world 2' after the 'world 1' Eoano is mostly settled.
     
• Feature updates included in World changes:
  
  • Districts can house sub stores and have a defined reformation feature. For example, the Better Futures Company Camp turns into the Better Futures Company Headquarters, a Merchant Guild office.
    
  • Gardens start filled and slowly replenish as the townspeople tend to them.
    
  • Node features had rarity tweaks to their nodes, and now display their level range along with their size. More significantly, nodes can now gate progress, although currently there is no reason to not break down every door you find, and no cost to doing so. The Ancient Queen boss was added to one of the towers in the new Eoano island.
    
  • Altars are now dedicated to different primal forces, in this update the Forest primal force was added to the old Sky force.
    
  • Doctors no longer charge to diagnose, cost lowered, use modern menu now.
    
  • Standardized internal code for exploration features, allowing them to have weighted odds and more detailed behavior without maintenance nightmares. (IE, they got both of those mechanics and any later added ones will automatically have those mechanics as well.) Events got cleaned up a bit, as mentioned in the currencies known issues update.
    
  • Blacksmith has better feedback text, pricing on upgrading items changed to aether AND world currency, but less world currency.
    
• Improved item and stat displays, especially in regards to breaking up their text with colors.
  
• Tutorial Text and Feature Description text separated, latter now displays in paren instead of on a new line, making it much less intrusive.
  
• Legacy adapter behavior extended to music, notably for the docks.
  
• Barely worth mentioning, but titles for town helper were added, and how champion title code works has been changed.
  

As you may have noticed, this update took slightly longer than usual, but not significantly so. Dragon signing off o7

v0.8.b_5 has been released to beta.
Report issues and bugs in the steam forums.
Note: The previous beta was shown to be a bit less stable than expected after some live playtests, so it is not being pushed to the default branch this week.

Known Issues Updates: Currency rewards in nodes/exploration features are still mostly out of date. Un-even fight balance was partially solved for dungeons, but not other instances.

Partial Changelog:

• Many insidious bugs that crashed in certain contexts, or did not apply numbers properly in a way that was around correct, but not actually correct.
  
• Picking archetypes and feats shows which skills you already have.
  
• Looting now displays your current capacity usage.
  
• Saves now have a timestamp instead of date.
  
• Added an 'adventuring party' system to tower dungeons. (Can also be used on other dungeon types, but currently only tower dungeons have need of them.) You can hire companions for a token fee, and they will aid you in the 'high security' checkpoints in the dungeon, as well as the boss. They take a share of all the loot in the dungeon, but even the odds in the mass battles. They will leave if you do not visit the dungeon for a while. Fighting alongside them will increase the duration they wait at the dungeon for you before leaving. They die permanently and cannot be taken outside the dungeon, but you hire from the actual world occupants of that town, and after leaving, they return to wandering the world in their own story.
  
• Re-added random wandering behavior of AI. They tend to group around inns, residential districts, and dungeons with the party feature enabled.
  
• A deliberate balance choice to tweak neck and head damage multipliers from 3x to 2.5x was made. This may require further reduction, to reduce the 'neck meta' of unexpected instant kills.
  
• Legacy behavior was added to nodes and town features, most now have another feature designated as fallback art, and thus display time passing better.
  
• Examining weapons closely now has a more comprehensive display and itemization of attacks.
  
• Armor qualities have been re-added with more substance, and now are closer to weapon qualities, with the notable exception that partially negative qualities (flaws/traits/qualities) exist.
  
• Level display has changed from words to a number, the word tier now indicates the number of weapon/armor qualities. This means players no longer have to remember that a shoddy weapon is better than a crude weapon but less than a poor weapon to determine level, since examining weapons and armor displays their traits fully. This system was in place before, but only for weapons greater than 'legendary' tier, and it started at 'legendary' rather than level 1.
  
• Old leveling display adjusted to show traits/qualities/flaws at a glance.
  

Example of new display of armor traits:


Dungeon with NPC friends, my friends

v0.8.b_4 has been released to beta.
Report issues and bugs in the steam forums. GitHub faux roadmap for the brave and foolhardy here.

Known Issues: Local currency rewards (the ingame system that replaced gold, not related to the regional pricing updates from a few weeks ago) from Nodes and Explore town Features are still not up to snuff, but they're getting closer, same with mass battles with an uneven number of fighters.

Going forward, the plan is to keep the main Steam branch at least the second latest version, and the Beta branch will be no more than one update ahead, if possible. This is more for upload management reasons than stability reasons, but none of the updates have been less stable than the ones preceding them, despite the shocking number of changes. I consider this more revealing of the inherently instability at this point in development than an accomplishment on my part, and am glad I choose to keep Trawel in early access.
Expected earliest release of v0.8 has been moved from September 9th to the 17th of that month, but it may still occur even later than that. The intention of v0.8 is to be stable and fully featured landmark to start off post 2022 Trawel with.

Actual Patch Notes:
Changes from the last beta, in a VERY rough order:

• As always, many small bug fixes that weren't noticeable unless you looked very hard, or were to lesser used mechanics.
  
• Added 'pouch/bag', which lets you store up to 3 different pieces of backup equipment. Currently there are some issues with clearing up space if the thing you want is of a different type than what you have stored, but it works fine if you don't treat it as a full inventory and just an alternatives system. This may receive full inventory status later, but the goal right now is mostly so you can store more than one weapon. This also comes with the option to examine what you're comparing more closely, and swap what you're comparing with if you had alternatives in your pouch (which immediately equips the new item you're comparing with).
  
• 'You' menu categorized into different submenus, and is now accessible from Nodes, which you can save within. Saving in a Node will save your location in that node. Many of the options are new or reworked features:
  
  1. Settings menu includes display updates from last updates, and also three 'auto' options: AutoLevel, AutoLoot, and AutoBattle. These allow the player to opt out of those mechanics. AutoBattle does not resolve fights instantly, and instead shows the player what options the AI would pick before it does them. The player currently cannot stop the AI mid battle, and it doesn't instantly complete the battle to discourage fightspam.
     
  2. Character skill menu, which now has a list of all the player's current final skills on demand if they want to see the collation of their sources, instead of just telling you that that isn't implemented yet.
     
  3. Inventory with pouch, drawbanes, and a Map feature that lets the player learn the path to any town they've been in before, as well as look up lore and other information on each town they've been to.
     
  4. Society menu which holds Quests, Faction Reputation, and the revamped title system that has upgradable titles. This makes the Arena Champion titles much easier to parse.
     
  5. Saving, which works in Nodes now.
     
  6. A stats overview, mostly put in here so it's harder to press the next option instead of saving.
     
  7. Quitting to the Main Menu.
     
  8. A Glossary of game terms and mechanics. Includes explanations of mechanics and in-game-generated lists of Skills. Archetypes, Feats, Perks, Wounds, Effects, DrawBanes, Seeds, and Weapon Qualities. The scrollable menus implemented in the previous updates are put to good use in some of these. If in a debug testing save, this menu is replaced by a cheats menu. Includes the old Infodump tutorial as well.
     
  9. exit, as part of the '9 is back' reworks, many menus were made to have 9 be 'previous menu' or cancel.
• Wound/Tactics: Added a 'tactics' mechanic which is closely related to some combat actions which now have secondary non-damage affects tied to them. Previously in Trawel, attacks could only express different mechanics through attached wounds. Wounds were overhauled to better display and handle their random chance to not roll (1/10th chance per attack, unless it uses a Keen weapon; the elementalist skills now do not reroll normal grazes), and some slight behavioral updates, especially to bleeding, which keeps getting reworked in the background every update as goals for it change. More impactfully, the wound internal management changed what wounds will roll on which body parts, and a few were cleaned up.
  'Condition Wounds' are now branded as 'Injuries', and apply negative debuffs until the end of the battle, cementing their goal of acting as 'soft hp gates'. Normally HP systems have intense dissonance when a person goes from fully functional at 1HP to completely inactive at 0HP, Injuries help move the combat along by increasing the negative effects they take, and, somewhat uniquely to Trawel, avoid decreasing damage output of the inflicted when thematically possible to prevent combats dragging on forever if both participants have all their bones broken.
  'Tactics' follow the same 'on attack' paradigm of wounds, but cover personal buffs or debuffs. Currently, there is a Dodge Roll, a Single Out, and a 'Challenge to attack me' tactic. Tactics are provided by some Skill Sources, but can also be called as part of a normal skill source attack. For example, Daredevils don't know any tactics and can only use them from their skill attacks, but Armor Masters can single out as a 'tactic action' from their battle menu, which doesn't deal damage, but applies the tactic effect without needing to roll an attack option with the tactic.
  
• 'Yore' boss added to the Dungeon of Fame. Yore's dungeon fight is a mass battle using the newly-detached-from-forts combat conditions, and you must delve his dungeon to disable them if you don't want to fight him at a severe disadvantage. This is meant to be a contrast to the Tower of Fate, which requires you to reach the top to do battle, because Yore's fight room is the first room in the dungeon.
  
• Cloth separated into Patchwork, Linen, and Cotton. All three, plus silk, have received minor stat changes.
  
• Terminal and Graphical have (for now) slightly different display options improvements.
  
  1. Graphical got several options to display time passing 'in real time'. In combat, this was already happening a fixed amount after every attack, but an alternative option to tie this the mechanical 'time delay' of actions was re-added (it was in but disabled and with bad numbers prior), instead of a pause after every action. Out of combat, a new option was added and enabled as the default: to show the world state time passing in features/towns. Theoretically this might display weird since the time could pass before or after an option is chosen, but in practice most of Trawel was configured to add time in an appropriate place, and the game just needed to get told to compute it more often. For example: when waiting for a fight in an arena, the game will now attempt to show 6 hours of waiting in 1 second instead of catching up instantly. Towns were changed to use the forest background, and this makes it much more clear when time is passing, and how much.
     WARNING: In most cases, 6 hours per second is quick enough that you won't be waiting long, but some Arenas only fight once per month, so you'll be sitting there waiting. Considering your character has to wait the time in more seconds conceptually, perhaps this will give you a better sense of scale- having to wait 2 minutes feels like a lot, but for them, that 2 minutes was 43200 minutes.
     
  2. Terminal got 'back out', which will likely reach legacy graphical in a later update. This attempts to leave up to 10 menus/cancel 10 options, and uses modern handling of Trawel menus to know when to stop. In most cases, the 10 is just a safety thing, since not all cancellations progress the game state, but many menus do not accept a 'back out' input in that case. You trigger this by entering '10', and '0' will back out once if you wish to do it step by step, as a safer alternative to spamming '9', which is sometimes a real choice.

That's the major list this week/sprint, dragon out o7