Big Content Update:

Today, we're pushing our big monthly update! The first big chunk we're adding is the story character events. We're adding 6 of them, which is about half of the events we have planned. The other ones are all written, but not scripted yet. They should be in the next big update. The events are represented by an exclamation mark on nodes on the world map. Just walk to it, activate the node and you'll see an "event" option in the list of possible actions. Please note that 2 of the events added stop being available after a certain point in the story, so you might not be able to see those in your current save file. They are fairly early in the story though, so it should be easy to check them out. The next big chunk we're adding is 4 more story battles. Just like our last big build, those should be fairly challenging and we might need to be toned down. We'll be awaiting your feedback on this topic! Here are the highlights of the build:

• Character Events: Adding story-character events. We're still missing a few, but 6 of them are in the game right now. 2 of them can only be accessed during a specific story period, which might make them unaccessible in a save file that's very advanced in the story. The events will appear on the worldmap as an exclamation mark on nodes and should be fairly obvious. They are normally triggered around the time of some specific story event, so some might be a bit "old" for a player that's reached the end of the current content.
• New maps: 4 new story battles are added to the build. There are no new patrols though.
• AI: Lots of improvements and fixes to the AI, especially around Raises and items.
• Gamepad Triggers: Xbox One/Xbox360 controllers triggers started acting strangely after the last update. This should be resolved.

Progress Report:

The current build should speak for itself in terms of progress. We've been busy with character events and the new encounters. We managed to squeeze in a few balance tweaks from comments from the forums, especially centered around the AI, but it's just scratching the surface of all the updates we want to put in. Our priority is to get all the content in first though, to make sure QA can run through all the levels of the game. Then we should have a full month left dedicated to balance and tweaks before release. And of course, we'll be able to put more balance updates after release too, if needed. We had a first big pass of QA last week, so starting next week, our first order of business will be to go through the issues that were found and fix them all, so we're ready for our next big QA pass. The only remaining big tickets are our credits section and game ending, so we're starting work on those to make sure whatever text we add to those can be localized in time for release. Everything is on schedule for now, but we'll be extremely busy in the coming months, that's for sure! Finally, we'd like to thank again everyone on the forums for all their input and feedback! It's been a tremendous help and we really appreciate it! Thanks again for the great support, everyone! :)

Change logs:

01/18/2019 - Version 0.7.0

New Content:

• Character Events: Adding story-character events. We're still missing a few, but 6 of them are in the game right now. 2 of them can only be accessed during a specific story period, which might make them unaccessible in a save file that's very advanced in the story. The events will appear on the worldmap as an exclamation mark on nodes and should be fairly obvious. They are normally triggered around the time of some specific story event, so some might be a bit "old" for a player that's reached the end of the current content.
• New maps: 4 new story battles are added to the build. There are no new patrols though.

Balance:

• AI:
  • Guests can't revive allies anymore.
  • Updating weights for items so they are a little less used in general.
  • Every time an AI uses a healing item, it's less likely to use one again in the future. Increased that reduction.
  • Added a reverse-reduction to the above: every time an AI doesn't use an item, it reduces any "item usage reduction" it might have accrued from using items previously.
  • Reducing weight value of DefDown and ResDown for AI calculations, so they focus on those a little less.
  • When trying to "find a spot away from enemies", the AI will now count Berserk allies as hostiles.
  • Adding a global weight reduction to revives. That reduction is partially lifted once enough enemies have been killed.
  • AI that are "waiting for the player to get closer/X turns" are supposed to be less likely to self-buff, but the recent AI update had removed that behavior. Adding it again.
  • AI will try to revive allies much further away from the battle than before (unless they are melee types and raised at full health)
  • Each time a target is raised, it will be less likely to be raised again in the future, to somewhat mimic the negatives of injuries on the enemies.
  • Cleaned up the AI calculations when using MP-damage and MP-draining abilities. AI should make smarter decisions.
• Archafflictor: Increasing melee height range from 3 to 4.
• Aeoth: Reducing Dark resistance to 0 from 75.
• Harvester: Reducing Dark resistance to 0 from 50 on base tier. Other tiers reduced to 25 from 50.
• Thespeiros: Disabling revives for the AI on that map.
• Cabin Battle: Disabling the chance for a certain enemy to spawn with "Height Advantage" on this map. Also reducing the level of some enemies and making the Ranger wait 1 turn before activating.

Bug Fixes:

• Guild: The right arrows in the guild customization screen will now work again.
• Gamepad Triggers: Xbox One/Xbox360 controllers triggers started acting strangely after the last update. This should be resolved.
• Blood Suck and Soul Suck: Now cannot be casted on oneself.
• Shove Attacks: Killing a target using a push attack into an obstacle would use all the MP of the caster.

Modding:

• Errors: Adding better error handling for missing abilities that a custom job could be referencing.
• PoachNone: Removing special ability flag "kPoachNone" and adding extraFlag "kTargetCannotRevive" instead, so "PoachNone" won't use the Special flag slot.