Today we are deploying our next major update for the Alpha version of Roguebook. We are nearing the end of our major updates for the Alpha client as we prepare the real beta with all the fancy bells and whistles. Weve teased what weve been working on for this update earlier this year, but a few things have changed since then. This is also why its arrived a little later than planned. Sorry about that. This isnt just a content update, but a major overhaul of some core designs in the game. Weve done a good bit of internal testing and tweaking to the point where we think we are ready for the public to test it. Thats you! Without further ado, here are the patch notes for the Major March update:

Talents

Weve completely overhauled the bonuses you get when increasing the amount of cards in your deck. The idea behind talents, and deck rewards in general, are to incentivize the gathering of cards and creation of large decks, rather than min/maxing your deck into a very specific build that performs only one function. How our talents work: There are six tiers of Talents, each unlocked at a certain amount of cards in your deck. Talent Tier Thresholds: 15, 20, 25, 30, and 35 cards Each talent tier gives you the choice between 3 talents: (1 neutral talent, 1 for hero A, 1 for hero B). Available talents are selected randomly from a pool. This is so that whenever you start a new run, you cant stick to a preferred build which would dictate your drafting experience too much.

Allies

Introducing Allies! Or to put it in a less exciting way, equipment cards have been rethemed as allies. The origin of this change was thematic. We felt that relics and equipment were too conceptually close. We also wanted to take advantage of the broad range of creatures in Faeria lore that could be called on as interesting cards in Roguebook. Mechanically, the big difference is that all allies have a certain amount of strength. This number can influence a wide range of things, from the strength of their abilities to how much damage they do when attacking. Some allies attack, some allies do not. Some allies are Goki.

World Maps

With this update, we are introducing six new maps to Roguebook, two for each chapter. The old maps are gone. The big reason for this is that we have totally changed the basic design concept behind map exploration. Previously, we had treated normal battles as rewards that you need to seek and draft a card afterward. This lead to problems where some players would routinely skip battles because they felt too dangerous, even though we intended them to be both rewarding and fun. Instead, we have decided to make normal battles mandatory by placing them in choke points, and removing the card draft award from them. They will still give you gold for defeating them, but really what you are looking for are the rewards hidden behind those fights. Card drafts themselves are now additional map events you can find on their own.

Roads

Roads have been added to the game. For now, these are roughly implemented as brown tiles to move across - but will look much fancier in the future. Roads do what you think they do - they allow you to move faster than normal. Generally, the best rewards will be off the beaten path and away from the roads.

Hero Resurrection

We have updated the hero revival system to avoid issues where losing a character could be seen as a positive thing to happen to you. This is what happens now: When a hero dies, all of its cards in your deck are transformed into Revive Songs. You must play 3 of these cards in order to resurrect the hero, and transform their cards back to normal. Wound cards are also added to your deck as before, but we have increased the amount to 3 after some testing. All Wounds are removed from your deck after defeating a chapter boss.

Hero Swapping

Yes, we are changing the Hero Swapping system again! This has proved to be one of the most difficult design challenges to overcome. We thought we had it solved with whenever you play a card of a hero, that hero moves to the front. We were wrong - it still felt off. Weve done a lot of internal testing on this front. First, we tried disabling the auto-swapping and made a new keyword called Heroic, which moves the hero to the front if it isnt already. Basically, we keyworded the functionality from before. It felt better, but after testing we didnt like that its easy to forget that card X has Heroic or not. It was leading to fatal and frustrating mistakes. After a few weeks of playing with Heroic we then came to this idea: why not just say that all Block cards have Heroic? So, thats what we did. Here is how swapping works now: Whenever a hero plays a Block card, that hero moves to the front if it isnt already. Thats it. There are also some new keywords to compliment this new system.

• Ranged: Costs 1 less if this hero is in the back
• Melee: Costs 1 less if this hero is in the front
• Charge: Move this hero to the front

Charge is being used on very few cards, basically to let an aggressive hero like Sharra have ways to move the front and gain their benefits from being there. Another new keyword is Aggressive. This is for allies only. An ally with Aggressive attacks at the end of your turn for a number equal to its strength.

Misc Changes

Loads and loads of new cards, relics, and gems. We could list them all out, but so much has changed it is probably better you just play and see for yourself. An important note is that, for this patch, we have limited hero selection to Sharra and Sorocco specifically. We know this isnt as fun, but we decided it is much better right now to focus entirely on these heroes and expand their card base to a point that feels more like the final game. Well try to get Aurora and Seifer back in asap. Sorry for the wait! --------- Thats about it! There are probably more changes we havent mentioned here, but so much has been adjusted its difficult for us to remember it all. We have been testing with Roads so long, for example, that we almost forgot they were new. Anyway, enjoy the new build! Please let us know how it feels here, or in our official Discord channel. Its available now on Steam. - Team Abrakam

[ 2020-03-13 17:11:44 CET ] [ Original post ]