Hi everyone! with some relevant mechanics changes in this update, I felt like writing a small post explaining them rather than just the usual log.

Gameplay & Balance

-Alchemy and Crafting skills implemented. You can now combine new items from ingredients while resting at camp. More "recipes" will be added in future versions. For some of the new ingredients required in recipes, check Myrelle the trader in Port Galeb.
-New skill mechanics. (See below)
-New Resistances system. (See below)
-Enemy attacks with special effects can now be resisted. For instance, spider poison has a chance to be resisted by Vitality, while ghost paralysis can be resisted by Spirit. check the enemy attack info for details (if your Mythology skill is high enough).
-Default difficulty when starting a new game is now "New School".
-Meditation skill revamped. Now it gives a chance to recover some of the spent willpower after battle.
-Spell "Regrowth" (Animism rank II) is now implemented.
-Spell "Outrage" (Mentalism rank I) is now implemented.
-Spell "Minor Miracle" (Piety rank II) is now implemented.
-"Psalm of Renewal" now heals 2d6+SP instead of 1d6+SP.
-Experience rewards gained from quests or skill checks are no longer dependant on the party size (combat XP is still divided among party members).
-Accuracy per-level progression adjusted. Basic careers will now grant +1 to +3 weapon accuracy per level and, rarely, +4 (previously the range was 1-5). This will bring little change in the first few levels.
-Base accuracy formula adjusted slightly. The result shouldn't differ much from previous formulas, but it prevents some very high values at level 1.


Bugfixes

-First aid items now provide different healing bonuses as stated in their description.
-Fixed performance drop in Nessera Caves.
-Spending APs for Attack Focus will now work correctly with Charge and other special attacks.
-Solved several spawn issues in the Peninsula.
-Spell durations in combat now also take into account the initiative value at the time of being cast. For instance, a spell lasting only one round cast by your caster at initiative 5 will last until next round's initiative 5 turn. Previously the spell ended at the beginning of the round, making short duration spells lasting less than expected.


We continue relentlessly advancing through the planned roadmap, but at the same time we decided it was essential to make some changes to skills and resistances, after observing issues in the first couple months of the game being out.


Regarding elemental damage, the resistance percentage system was not working well for a non-inflationist game. Giving a +5% or +10% resistance was irrelevant, because its effect on, let's say, 5 points of fire damage are negligible. On the other hand, spells and items granting "noticeable" bonuses such as +25% or +30% were quickly stacking together close to 100%, which was not good. From this version onwards, such damage is dealt with with Protection, which works similarly to armor but is limited per turn. For instance, Fire Protection 4 means your character ignores 4 points of fire damage per turn.

You can have 'negative protection', called vulnerability. That means each damage source received is doubled, up to the value of the vulnerability. For instance, Fire Vulnerability 3 means receiving 5 points of fire damage gets increased to 8.

Percentage resistances remain in the game as a chance to completely ignore and reduce spells or other similar effects. Now a character has three resistances: Vitality, Spirit and Mind. Unlike before, these resistances now allow you to prevent some enemy attack effects, which were pretty much automatic until now.


Skills had some issues. Low level characters were already reaching 120% percentages and more, and I was being forced into adding difficulties of -100% soon. By now you already know I don't like inflation much, but in addition the system was too prone to savescumming, rather than truly making each assigned skill rank count towards what your party can or can't achieve. A rank or two more could just mean needing an extra reload or not. I love rolling dice, but the system was not behaving as intended.

In the new system, your assigned ranks get compared to difficulty. There's also a bonus calculated from your traits, talents, items, etc.


With the new system, matching the difficulty pretty much grants a decent success chance. An extra rank will make the success almos automatic with a decent bonus. However, one rank below difficulty makes the check hard, and two ranks below difficulty will in most cases be an auto-failure. Exceptional bonuses might still alter this balance thanks to future unique items or talents.

This system still leaves room for luck if rank is within one point of difficulty, but makes your skill rank the deciding factor about that checks you can reliably pass.

Ranks will still be limited to 10, but there will be Expert Ranks (11+), available in the mid and late game through Advanced Careers, quests, etc.


Finally you can put some of those herbs to use, and make a few potions! Also Crafting skill will grant the ability to combine a few useful items. Still, the system is barebones and more recipes will be added on each update. It's possible that some future Crafting recipes will require special talents or ranks on other skills to be doable, but for now, all available game recipes are accessible with just Alchemy 4 and Crafting 3.


Over 80 bugs were fixed since EA release. Please don't hesitate to report any issues in the forums, I look personally into each and every reported problem.

Lots of features planned for 0.8 were already released in the last couple of months: a few extra quests, a new companion, extra storage and stash was added, and many UI limitations were fixed (selling stacks, equip/use items from party inventory, and others).

But many other unplanned things were added to the game: support for ultrawide screens, input bindings, and more. I also made a big revision on how armor was working, making it more effective and less random.


Some players were complaining about the combat misses and blaming a defective random-number-generator. Anyone that has played with real dice knows randomness is brutal, streaky and unpredictable, and that you never have "normal luck" in a gaming session. To avoid disappointing players, highly succesful modern games fudge the dice. I can't call a game difficulty "Old School" and do that, in good conscience. But I understand not everyone playing the lower difficulties wants to face Lady Fortune's capricious whims, and for them, a "karma" option was added in Settings/Gameplay. It only works on New School and Explorer difficulties. An option to permanentely lower the game difficulty was also added (in party options window). Karma shouldn't have a big impact on your dice average results, but tries to avoid "streaks" of consecutive bad attack rolls.


A few features are still missing before reaching the 0.8 milestone next month: two mini-dungeons in the Peninsula, camping encounters, and creating an UI to view spells and talents. As planned, this will be out by April. From then onwards, the focus will be on expanding the game. Archaelund needs new areas, more quests, and raising the level cap to make interesting character builds. With all the game systems working to my satisfaction, that will be my priority for the rest of the year.

Version 0.9 is scheduled for December (rough estimate, remember!) and will make the game much bigger than it is now. More details on what to expect will be posted after 0.8 is out.