It's finally time for the next big content update! After the big balance update last week, this build is focusing more on adding new content. Here are the highlights of this update:

Highlights

• Adding an intro video to the game. Hit "new game" to check it out! The current music is a placeholder and we have a narrator planned for the video as well, but that's still in the works.
• Adding 4 Story Battles, 3 Patrol Areas, 1 Optional/Secret battle.
• Adding an extra patrol for zones: Caravan Trail, Azure Plains, The Resting Giants, Alpine Woods.
• Adding difficulty levels to the game. You will be able to select them upon starting a new game or from the Troops Menu from the world map.
• Adding new visual customization options for characters, including some accessories, haircuts and hats.
• Adding a shield sprite to the idle stance in combat.
• Adding "monster specific sprites" to Bzils to show their main class.

Progress Report:

Change Log

New Content and features:

• Adding an intro video to the game. Hit "new game" to check it out! The current music is a placeholder and we have a narrator planned for the video as well, but that's still in the works.
• Adding difficulty levels to the game. You will be able to select them upon starting a new game or from the Troops Menu from the worldmap. The "added enemies" option isn't implement in all the maps yet.
• Adding 4 Story Battles, 3 Patrol Areas, 1 Optional/Secret battle.
• Adding a new patrol for encounters: Caravan Trail, Azure Plains, The Resting Giants, Alpine Woods.
• Adding a new hairstyle (shortlaced) and Elf ears as a hat (making those a hat was the only way for them to show properly with our layering system). A big thanks to Hector Velar for those!
• Adding visual customization options: Orc Tusks accessory, Pumpkin Head hat , and 2 new skintones.
• Adding new monster type: Bulldrake, Malcubus.
• Adding visuals for Massive Hit. Improving visuals of some abilities.
• Updated missing abilities/passives on some monsters.
• Adding more sound effects in general, specifically to the worm cutscene and battle.
• Adding Cone shape to abilities shape. We'll go over abilities and see if it would make sense for some to be changed to this new shape.
• Adding a shield sprite to the idle stance in combat.
• Adding "monster specific sprites" to Bzils to show their main class. The class wheel will now show those sprites rather than the monster sprites for Bzils (you can revert to showing the monsters by changing the value "BzilClassChangeShowsMonsters" to true in the GameOptions.txt if you want).

Balance:

• Reducing the amount of items counts per battle for most items, especially healing potions.
• Increasing movement of Plague Doctor to 4.
• Reducing boon's MP boost on kill from 12% of max MP to 10%.
• Small tweaks to some Ranger abilities damage.
• Updating Counter-Pounce to jump in water if the caster can swim.
• Healing Staff will not trigger counters anymore.
• Adjusting stats growth of many classes. Notably reducing wizard MND, but there's a lot of small adjustments to try balance classes a little better.
• Increasing the RES of most shields a tiny bit.
• Lowering the Sorcerer's damage from 1x to 0.9x for now, although we have a new system in the works for "full screen spells" for the next update.
• Changing the cost of Quicken to 14 from 10 MP.
• Reducing the difficulty of the Crossroads story battle by removing one enemy (they will stil be there with "extra enemies" difficulty setting).
• Reducing the difficulty of Timber Road story battle by removing one of the ranged enemies (they will still be there with "extra enemies" difficulty setting).
• Updating loot, steal and poach tables. Some entries were missing the further along the story the player went. This should result in better drops in general as the story progresses.
• Assassins are now able to use Bows rather than Crossbows.

UI:

• When selecting "end turn" in combat without having taken an action, the Turn Order will be updated to reflect the correct order.
• When Raising a dead ally, their turn will be shown in the Turn Order and they will be shown as a "target" so you can see the HP gained.
• Moving the Crafting option to the root of the Main Menu (on Extra Button) rather than from the character commands box, since it doesn't pertain to the selected character.
• Changing damage dealt to a character with Mystic Shield to be "MP colored". Changing damage prediction text to be MP colored as well.
• Changing the Bzil Class Change process so it saves better passives/subclass that were in used before the class change.
• When removing passives that changed the equipement you can use, the "optimize gear" will only be triggered if your current gear isn't valid anymore, rather than every time.
• Updating the "attack command" description to show more information about the currently equipped weapon.
• Tweaking the items tutorial to try to encourage player to read it.
• Updated the "Gamepad Fix" option as it wasn't helping as much as hoped. This new version might help out more people (but is still not recommended unless you're having issues with your gamepad).

Bug Fixes:

• Fixing a visual glitch where the Vicarious AP bonus would be shown as much smaller than it really is if you skipped the "AP countdown phase" in the Victory Screen (the correct AP was still awarded, but the screen wouldn't reflect the correct amount).
• Fixing issues where AI would sometimes ignore the chances of "not using an item it might otherwise want to use". This should make the AI use less items overall, as is intended.
• Fixing a bug where raising an enemy as a zombie would sometimes drop loot when summoned.
• Fixing visual glitch in item upgrade information box where the wrong power was sometimes listed.
• Fixing a bug where Bzil units wouldn't pickup the debuff immunities from their main class correctly.
• Fixing an issue where if a unit died on their own turn with regen, poison or bleed, they would take some damage/healing from it after death.
• Removing the ability to crit on "fixed damage" (damage that is fixed, such as a rock, % based, etc.).
• Fixing menu music not playing correctly when accessing the menu from the store.
• Fixing rare issue with weapon showing at times when unit is underwater.
• Fixing various issues tied to displacement abilities involving water and/or traps.
• Fixing damage showing 'miss' rather than the actual damage when pushing a target that can swim into the water.
• Fixing various issues with the turn order when using abilities to quicken or slow down characters.
• Fixing issue with volumes not being saved properly for users using a different locale.
• Fixing issue with the Store where one could buy items after running out of money under certain circumstances. And other small visual issues.
• Fixing an issue where a troop might have the wrong position in the menu after changing its class from the class change section.
• Fixing an issue when canceling video resolution change.
• Fixing a bug where Wild Cards that heal or damage were not counted as damage abilities for counters.
• Adjusting the volume of some sounds that were off. That process will be ongoing for a bit and there's definitely more sounds that need tweaking, especially the UI ones.
• Fixing an issue where the AI wouldn't consider Wild Cards buffs/debuffs as a valid option when checking for what to do.

Hotfixes:

• Fixing an issue where the game could hang on The Crossroads if a specific difficulty was chosen and a new recruit was hired prior to entering.
• Fixing an issue where starting a new game, skipping the intro video, quitting to the titlescreen, then starting a new game again would lead to the video being skipped automatically.