Version 1.01 is up!

[Dancing Dragon Games]

Version 1.01 brings a huge haul of UI/UX upgrades, fixes, adjustments to balance/economy, and some graphical updates as well! Thanks for hanging in there as we develop and test these updates to make the process as seamless as possible for both your in progress saves and your name games.

We’re happy to announce that your Bond relationships with the main character matter more. Every possible pairing now triggers a special cutscene in the “good” epilogue between just your hero and that character, and each one is different. There is even a consideration for a situation in which you did not pair the hero with anyone. As a follow up to this change, a very difficult decision was made to remove the “bad ending” from the game. The reasoning here is several fold - it presents a disjointed story continuity, especially in regards to the future, is kind of depressing, it cannot involve multiple outcomes based on how the main character’s Bond relationship as the good ending now does, and the way to trigger it is not an impactful or meaningful gameplay mechanic. We hope the new epilogues more than make up for it!

We were not able to implement and properly test the new "Endurance" game mode for this patch. We will include the feature in Version 1.02, along with Lunatic difficulty.

Highlights

-Item attack type resistance fixes, artifact evasion formula fixes and improvements
-Changes to a key late game cutscene depending on the Relationship status of the Hero to better reflect the reactions and feelings of the in-game events
-Each “Bond” relationship with the main character now has a special cutscene after the ending credits of the game to properly wrap up that part of the Epilogue. There is also one in case the Hero did not Bond with anyone.
-“Bad Ending” entirely removed, see reasons above
-Many bug fixes and balance changes, details below

Art/Graphics

-Narima’s Blademaster class now has a brand new unique sprite - existing saves can class change into it
-All of Jules’ class sprite graphics are unique to him
-Sybil and Abigayle’s classes now display their proper hair color
-Corrected a minor HP redraw glitch

UI/UX

-You now have the option to move squads already deployed during Deploy Phase
-Additional info is now available when hovering over enemy or ally squads on the tactical map
-In most cases, removed cursor restrictions while making selections for move, attack, or other targeting
-Small squad preview window will appear during more operations
-When map healing, full HP bars will be greyed out
-You can now toggle on/off Permadeath in the System Options
-Tech tree: The "Locked" graphic persists for any tech that is currently not available, affecting techs with prerequisites and the "Capstone" techs

General Changes/Fixes

-Having a squad be completely defeated now continues to count against your deploy limit
-Fixed an issue where damage reduction for [damage type] from artifacts wasn’t working
-Fixed: Exemplar damage reduction rate corrected from 75% to 50% (as description states)
-Fixed: St. Teresa’s Tiara strength and magic modifiers now count as item stats rather than base stats
-Fixed a rare crash associated with viewing the tutorial before chapter 2 base.
-Fixed: Crash associated clicking on the scrollbar activation area in Reserves window when the window has exactly 11 rows of units
-Fixed: Field Marshal and Barek Tor Savagery are now correctly flagged as Leader traits.
-Fixed: The trait “Hand of Zanatus” now correctly prevents enemies from surrendering
-Fixed: Final boss additional HP adjustment and achievement unlock not functioning for some players on Warlord
-Fixed an issue in Chapter 12 with 2 tiles that overlap with enemy reinforcements
-Added a dialogue in Chapter 15 from Imperial soldiers to better convey the narrative and stage challenge
-If you defeat all enemies in Chapter 12, you automatically succeed all challenge missions
(spoiler) in chapter 29 can no longer fly.
-Increased visual distinction between the Ranger and Skirmisher tactical map sprites
-Fixed cannons showing their Jammed animation in a few instances where the enemy was simply out of range.
-Removed "Hire Barek Tor Mercenary" Challenge mission on Chapter 8
-Fixed Phalanx trait and associated tech not working correctly
-Fixed: “Surround” mechanic now correctly triggers starting at two adjacent enemies. Morale malus has been slightly reduced to compensate.
-Day/Night cycle and Weather fixed to actually function
-Various updates to tutorial
-Various typo fixes

Gameplay/Balance

--Artifacts/Items--
-Fixed [damage type] reduction not working on artifacts. Landis's Mirage, Hulking Pavise, Aldor's Tower Shield mitigation reduced given functionality fix
-Fixed: St. Teresa’s Bulwark’s damage reduction will now correctly apply to the front row rather than everyone *but* the front row.
-Evasion% granted from artifacts now confers a separate chance for an attack to be adjusted to a Glancing Blow or Dodge outright regardless of the SKL and terrain disadvantage. Evasion numbers on artifacts have been reduced to compensate
-+Hit% granted by artifacts now confers a bonus chance to entirely overcome enemy skill gaps and terrain advantages.
-Iblis Family Signet can no longer drop randomly or be sold in shops, and its unique effect only applies once per army.
-Added "Cloak of Cunning" which greatly reduces a squad's chance to be critically hit
-Blood Staff HP reduction toned down from 80 to 50
-Dragonslayer (the Artifact) now stacks with Dragonslayer (the Trait)
-Temporal modulator can now be triggered only a max of three times per Player Phase
-Everlasting Potion now suffers from the effects of healing fatigue (gets weaker with repeated uses within the same round)
-Repeated purchases of Arena Token in Chapter 30's Home Base shop will increase in cost by 1.25x per purchase

-- Conscripts/Mercenaries--
-Spellweaver Tier 1 tech has been replaced by “Apprentice Training”, which will grant a permanent slot to hire Apprentices.
-Light affinity now affects the starting LDR roll of mercenaries and conscripts.
-Bonus levels added by Professionalism and Standing Army are now considered “homegrown” levels for the purpose of calculating stat growth
-Several Unique mercenaries have been altered:
-Clarimonde - HP, Str, mag, SKL modifiers have been slightly reduced. Field Marshal trait replaced with Beacon and Arcane Barrier. Rarity and cost reduced.
-Renalyn - reduced STR and SKL mods
-Domak - reduced SKL mods
-Klok - reduced MAG mod
-Other mercenaries have had their rarity and cost adjusted according to their overall ability, but have not had any other parameter changes.

-- XP/growth--
-Experience gained for combats where no enemies are killed has been marginally increased
-Experience gained in combats versus lower level enemies has been decreased
-You can now change the Affinity of story characters and unique Mercenaries
-Combat experience gain bottom cap has been reduced to 1-per-combat (down from 1-per-kill)
-Experience modifiers are calculated before caps are applied
-Corrected an error where some Tier 1 conscript growths for some stats were slightly lower than intended (medic: mag, fighter: skl, bowman: skl). These have been updated and they are now identical to the T2 and T3s from the same Archetype, as intended.
-Homegrown stat growth bonus slightly reduced (for future playthroughs)
-A few story characters have had their stats adjusted (for future playthroughs)
-Sybil starting LDR increased to 45
-Diana STR growth has been reduced, and her SKL growth has been improved
-Beatrix MAG growth has been reduced
-Kuroda's Affinity changed to Dark (retroactive)
-Stat mods Proof of Merit reduce from +20% to +15% (retroactively)
-Medal of Valor now grants +2 LDR under 50 LDR, remains +1 from 50 to 70, and can no longer be used to raise LDR beyond 70

-- Affinities--
-str/-skl malus for Water affinity has been reduced slightly (retroactively)
-Dark affinity now has a minor -HP malus (retroactively)
-Affinity situational bonus no longer confers chance to crit or dodge. Instead, it confers a small bonus to damage and resistance while active. This should reduce the amount of variance in interactions.

--Traits--
-Overpower has been reworked. Now applies a modifier to morale lost from the target(s) taking damage based on strength rather than direct destruction on every target hit regardless of damage. (Note: the most extreme interactions from this trait reduced to about a third of what they were before, but it should still be possible to take significant chunks of morale off any enemies falls)
-Hit and Run (Light cavalry innate) now confers evasiveness bonus while on open terrain OR attacking (rather than on open terrain AND attacking)
-Lithe Assault Reworked: Bonuses to Hit confer a partial bonus to critical chance. (Note: The trait should be harder to trigger versus things already capable of dodging you, but easier otherwise.)

--Classes--
-Narima now begins as the unique Blademaster class, a versatile Light Infantry type with both a bow, and a sword double-attack
-Armor value for the final boss increased significantly
-Ranger crossbow attack has been improved to defeat cover a bit better
-Siege Cannon Threat Rating has been greatly reduced
-Fire mages should no longer target empty rows in any circumstance
-Priestess, Swordfighter, Hopsitaller, Acolyte, and Siren can now class up into Gunner and Siege Cannon when tech is unlocked
-Hospitaller can now also class up into Templar
-Hospitaller can now class up into Dragoon when tech is unlocked
-Magician, Support, and Dragon Archetypes have now been correctly assigned as blockers for melee (including stealth attacks)
-Templar MAG requirement increased from 50 to 56
-Swordmaster SKL requirement increase from 50 to 60
-General Ragavi’s starting LDR decreased to 74
-Diana’s “Titan” form now cancels Flying squad movement
-Diana’s “Titan” form can now directly attack from ground to walls
-The 25% damage reduction from Archery attacks of the Knight has been extended to the Cavalier.
-Knight’s attack has been given a small amount of splash damage. If used in conjunction with Cavalry Charge, the splash damage can also inflict shock.
-Class bonuses for HP and STR increased for Zweihander, Champion, Centurion, Knight
-Heavy and Light Infantry classes now gain a bit more armor per level (retroactively) and have slightly better per class bonuses
-Damage scaling decreased on the attacks for all dragons, Fire Mage, Ice Mage, Lightning Mage
-Double Attack (Sword Master/Champion/Blademaster) has had damage scale reduced slightly
-Polearm’s innate Phalanx trait improved, but now only affects adjacent in the same row
-Heavy classes from the "Fighter" group of classes increase base MAG and MAG growth

--Other--
-Final Boss map/tile-based attacks now do far more damage to player
-Several Map Objectives have had their Faction XP gain reduced
-Starting from Chapter 24 and on, the enemy team now has every available firearms tech unlocked
-You now have 4 more turns to let Chapter 12 play out before it automatically ends

Short term Roadmap
-New Game Mode: Endurance - train up your weaker squads
-New Game Mode: Post game extra difficult final boss fight
-New, highest difficulty, "Lunatic", with hardest possible options locked in, crueler AI and enforced Ironman save rules
-Additional artifacts
-Main character will get more customization options from game start questions
-Far more robust interaction between Affinity and Weather and Day/Night
-Renaming Squads
-Renaming Units
-Major UI/UX pass for reducing clicks, drag and drop, and more
-Replayable past missions

Long term Roadmap
-Translation to French, Italian, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean
-Porting SoW1 to Nintendo Switch, macOS, Linux
-New DLC campaign (Planned, long term goal, no specifics yet)
-Additional character classes
-SoW2

Thank you to everyone for following and supporting our game, we want you to know it doesn't go unnoticed, and certainly pushes us to make this game and future games everything they deserve to be!

Sincerely,
Phil

[Djukation-X]

Awesome, can't wait :)

[Manred]

Waiting for the patch to do a new run :D

[Thought Loops]

The warlord achievement won't unlock if you turn off permadeath, but there is no warning that will occur. Had to backtrack to get that one done. Maybe a fix for the future!

[Death Captain Dapper ★]

Originally posted by Thinking Cirlces:

The warlord achievement won't unlock if you turn off permadeath, but there is no warning that will occur. Had to backtrack to get that one done. Maybe a fix for the future!

I think the best thing would probably be to change the description of the achievement to say that you have to play warlord mode WITH permadeath

[Dancing Dragon Games]

Originally posted by Thinking Cirlces:

The warlord achievement won't unlock if you turn off permadeath, but there is no warning that will occur. Had to backtrack to get that one done. Maybe a fix for the future!

That's been addressed on this patch, it was never meant to be tied to perma

[TemjinGold]

The middle difficulty description in new game says no permadeath, which should probably be removed given permadeath is a separate choice now.

Also, any chance we can have an option for the turn to end automatically upon finishing your last unit's movement? It's fairly tedious to have to go and manually end the turn every turn.

[EatExcreteRepeat]

Another set of bangers in the patch notes here.

I'm actually kind of looking forward to this Mages nerf because I relied on them heavily in my previous strategies.

[Zorlond]

Some sweet stuff in here. Um, any rough ETA of the patch?

[dustin1280]

Will I be able to grind in my current game? Or will endurance mode have to be started from scratch to allow grinding?

[Throwaway Name]

Nice patch, You are definitely listening to the things we talk about. I knew something was wrong with exemplar, that light cavalry should have evasion while defending on open terrain, and Diana with overpower broke the game.

Now the target leader attack need less to hit bonus, it’s too good.

[dustin1280]

Also! Beatrix should be romanceable by BOTH main characters, not just male main :(

She is a bit crazy anyway, being bonded with the female main character doesn't seem very far fetched or even out of character of her

[2chuu4u]

Ooh! I like a lot of these upcoming changes. I'm glad to see the game project still growing, I love this title! Admirable development!!

[TrashCanGammy]

Thanks for the great game, hope you get great sales to justify expansions or a sequel. Can I check, what is the homegrown bonus? Does that mean star growth is higher for units you trained through battles than for higher level recruits you hire in later chapters?

[Lampros]

When is this patch scheduled to drop?

[Marijn]

Thanks for sharing the notes. Sounds great :-)