v0.8.b_16 has been released to 'beta', v0.8.b_15 (patch notes here) has been pushed to 'default', and v0.8.b_14 to the 'previous' beta branch. Report issues and bugs in the Steam Forums.

Combat

Capacity

Capacity is determined by Level instead of Strength. Gear Weight is determined by Item Level and Material Tier instead of item type and material weight. The old system punished non-Strength builds by making certain materials and items (which were not inherently better) harder to use. The new system is intended to put a soft cap on wielding high-level gear while you are low-level: you can still use it, but you will receive a penalty to Health and Damage based on how far you exceed your capacity. The penalties are minimal if you do not exceed your capacity by much, as the system is meant to discourage cheesing to get and use high level gear while still low level while having minimal impact on normal play. It does not apply to NPCs.

Health Multiplier and Healing

All healing is now capped by Max HP, uses LHP rounded up, and is multiplied by the health multiplier of the heal target. All sources of additional HP and Max HP are also affected by Health multiplier. These changes were implemented to make the capacity penalty more evenly effect different strategies as well as promote synergistic gear in healing builds.

Randomness Removal

The inherent chance to miss with low accuracy attacks has been removed. Every missed attack counts as a dodge, and even extremely low hit rolls will hit if the dodge roll is lower. Displacing armor was changed to add flat dodge roll instead of increasing miss threshold. The inherent chance to not roll a wound for an attack was removed. Keen was changed to add a bonus wound on impactful attacks.

Rush

Rush is a new mechanic used in Skills. When you gain Rush stacks higher than your Rush Count (the first Rush triggers with one Rush stack), you Rush, which increases your Rush Count, making all further Rushes take more Rush stacks. A Rush applies a -10% discount to your next attack set. Skills often grant both a way to get Rush stacks and a benefit when you Rush.

Skills, Gear Traits, Wounds

Display of Skill, Gear Trait, and Wound triggers was greatly improved with standardization and color usage. Each trigger includes the exact effect numbers it applies, if applicable.

• new: Adapt: On Suffer Wound: Gain Rush. On Rush: Gain Padded.
• new: Swinger: On Miss: Gain Rush. When Rushing: +.1 accuracy roll.
• new: Body Slam: On Take Impact: Gain Rush. When Rushing: On Impact: Inflict bonus damage equal to (rush count) percent of your MHP.
• new: Armor Crunch: On Block: Gain Rush. When Rushing: On Impact: Damage Armor 2% x Rush count.
• new: Sprint: On Dodge: Gain Rush. On Rush: Gain Advantage.
• new: Blood Rush: On Impact Crit: Gain Rush. On Rush: Heal 5% LHP.
• new: Stall: After Attacked: Slow 2 your attacker.
• changed: Elementalist: On Inflict Elemental Wound: Gain Rush.
• changed: Pyro, Cryo, and Aero-mantic: While Rushing: On Impact: 33% chance to inflict corresponding Elemental wound.
• Misc small adjustments to Salvage, Counter, Deadly Aim, Destructive, Armor Heart, Refreshing Dodge, Vampiric Spirit, and more.

Archetypes and Feats

General Modifications:

• FeatTypes received a minor overhaul and re-categorization to better distribute Feats across Archetypes.
• Archetypes and Feats almost never increase a single attribute to discourage ignoring other attributes entirely.
• Clarity is closely linked to "On Crit" triggers due to increasing hit chance, and thus crit chance.

Specific Changes:

• new: Hedger: Grants Swing and Adapt
• new: Runner: Grants Sprint and Reactive Dodge
• new: Mettle: Grants Armor Crunch and Sterner Stuff
• new: Junkie: Grants Blood Rush and Blood Drinker.
• new: Vigilant: Grants Counter and Stall.
• changed: Heavyweight: added Body Slam skill.
• changed: Hedge Mage: Grants Elementalist instead of Life Mage.
• changed: Archmage: No longer grants Elementalist.

Exploration

Loot

• Gems can be looted from enemy persons. Harpies and Merchants have all types, Hunters have Amber.
• Bandits, Graverobbers, Skeleton Knights, and (Skeleton) Pirates may be generated with additional skills but additional loot.
• New LootTable loot: Merchant Cache, Transmutation Cache, Vampire Cache.
• LootTable and Treasure Trove rewards adjusted for more consistent money rolls.

DrawBanes

• Attraction to Meats extends to Sinew, Mimic Guts, and Bat Wings at half intensity.
• Attraction to Precious includes Gold, Silver, Platinum, and Gems. Magic materials like Moonsilver and Solar Gold count as their base material.
• Attraction to Magic includes Living Flames, Protective Wards, Unicorn Horns, and magic gear materials.
• Attraction to Terror includes Beating Hearts, Cracked Eon Stones, Sinew, and Ectoplasm gear.
• Attraction to Foods and Reagents created.

Town Features

• Smiths can sharpen weapons to give them the Keen enchantment for Amber and money.
• Smiths can tinker gear to add positive qualities, up to 3 total, for Amber and money.
• Enchanters can upgrade the item level of gear for aether and money.
• Graveyards allow recruiting a single ally, a Gravedigger or Hunter, which will aid you in Vampire and Bat Swarm battles.

Internal Changes

The spriteloader in the graphical now loads sprites externally on game start and uses a fallback system specified by the jar. Theoretically this opens the game up to modded visual resource packs, in practice this system merely lays the groundwork for future updates. This is labeled as the "Custom" Graphic Style in-game and includes a combination of old and new sprites. o7

[ 2025-03-21 20:45:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

v0.8.b_15 has been released to beta, v0.8.b_14 (patch notes here) has been pushed to default. Report issues and bugs in the Steam Forums or the Audiogames.net Thread. You can find a more detailed change manifest on Github.

Exploration

Loot

The chests in Dungeons, the locked chests found in Beaches, and the (new) locked coffins in Graveyards use a standardized loot table system. Each loot location has different chances for each possible type of loot. This increases the variety within each area, and consistency across multiple areas, of rewards given from exploration.

Misc

• Harpies may be found with a variety of added DrawBanes. Those with additional DrawBanes get a free Feat (depending on the DrawBane) to make them more challenging.
  • Alpha Harpies have one added DrawBane.
  • Harpy nests added to Beaches- Harpies in nests accumulate DrawBanes over time. If the Harpy is killed without the nest being destroyed, a new Harpy will move in over time.
• Skeleton Knights appear in graveyards.
  • Locked Coffins (which use the new loot system) may have a Skeleton in them, guarding the rewards.
  • Skeletons appear as Shadowy Figures.
• Lootable statues and chests in dungeons regrow into new events.
• Wandering randomly in roads and admiring ports passes a small amount of time.
• Gravediggers in Graveyards have more fluff dialogue.

Building

• Lots can build more Feature types, providing coverage of all Punishments. This includes: Appraisers, Oracles, Enchanters, Beaches, and Docks. (These Features don't offer free services, this may or may not be changed in a future update.)
• Lot Features are mutually exclusive with all others of that Feature, not just the ones you own. (so no building a Garden in a town that already has a Garden.)
• Some Features have requirements to be built- Mines can't be built in Pocket Dimensions, Groves require a Forest, while Docks and Beaches require a Port.
• Building Features in Lots takes more time. (it was never increased after the update to increase travel time between towns.)
• Built Gardens no longer scale by level- instead they adapt to the town's flavor tags. Towns with Farms have increased grow speed, while Desolate Towns have reduced grow speed. Some tags also result in the passive seeds being reagents instead of food.

Quality of Life

Options

• AutoSip option automatically sips from your potion without asking at the start of each battle.
• Display options include defaults for all the 'Auto-' options, new characters that are created will have each option set to the default you have selected.
• Disabling Display Autobattle removes "AI chose X" in autobattles, which makes them occur instantly without waiting for input each attack choice.

Menus and Mechanics

• Brewing displays the type of Potion you attempted to make, as well as how many sips it has. This may not be the actual potion you ended up making- making any potion with Wood (to increase the number of sips) has a chance to fail and make Curse instead, for example.
• 'Society' menu renamed to 'World', 'Map' moved from inventory to 'World'
• Punishments inform you when you suffer them. (This was occasionally unclear in certain world events.)
• Current Potion added to inventory menu, you can view what type and how many sips are remaining, as well as discard a potion you don't wish to use.
• When looting armor/weapons, among other, smaller changes, excess line breaks have been removed, 'take' has been clarified to 'equip', and indentation has been increased to make it more obvious.
• Display for elemental resist mult on armors has been removed- these stats aren't used anywhere in the game since several versions ago.
• Effects that cannot overheal use clearer language to indicate this.
• Added hint text for empty player menus.
• One-off typo and wording fixes.

Misc

Balance

• Living Armor grants Parry On Crit. Formerly granted +8% armor flat On Crit. (Change aimed at reducing long background fights.)
• Toxic Brews adds one additional sip per Botch reagent (ie wood or any other that could potentially ruin your potion and make it Curse). Formerly added one more sip.
• Potion Brewer doubles sip amount. Formerly added two more sips.

Known Issues

There was a crash with hiring an Ally to delve a dungeon with you, and then them leaving causing a crash later due to the game being unable to remove them after they get bored. It is unknown if the added safeguards prevent this crash, or what the (seemingly complex?) trigger conditions are- usually they leave without issue. o7

[ 2024-10-22 23:41:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

v0.8.b_14 has been released to beta, v0.8.b_13 (patch notes here) has been pushed to default. Report issues and bugs in the Steam Forums or the Audiogames.net Thread. You can find a more detailed change manifest on Github.

World Attribute Contests

World Attribute Contests have received several improvements, in rough order of importance: [olist]

Your success chance is displayed alongside the amount of stat you have and the difficulty you are rolling against. Previously this just displayed the name of the stat.

Locked objects (and potentially others in the future) have random modifiers that make certain stats easier or more difficult to use on that object, providing a tradeoff between putting all your stats in one attribute or spreading them out. Trapped Chambers already used a similar system.

Scaling has been modified to be a % of the attribute you would be expected to have if you leveled only that stat, resulting in a smoother curve as you face higher level challenges. Overall, lower intensity challenges have less severe difficulty scaling than before while higher intensity challenges have higher base difficulty than before.

Unknown Traps in Trapped Chambers are easier. Challenging Sky Cultist Leader's divinity is contested against their Clarity. [/olist]

Records

Records are a prototype run recording option under Settings, Character Settings. They are enabled per-character. Once enabled for a character, they will log the options you pick and the things you see in the world to a local text file. They are intended as a text-based alternative to a video recording, either for personal use or to send feedback. While Records should be fully functional, it is unknown how much size they will take up over the average player run (not that I know what the average player run is like, hence this feature being made). You can disable recording, and create a new record file from the same option used to enable them. They are stored in the install folder. If you wish to contribute a saved Record as feedback, you can upload it to your preferred file host and share a link on the steam or audiogames forums. Records are plaintext and contain only what your character saw through your run- feel free to examine them yourself.

Display Improvements

• You can disable line separators and startup ASCII as an indicator option.
• You can disable the 'save complete' text along with the save file size message as an indicator option.
• Node Features with a living Boss display the type of boss when viewed from town, until they are slain.
• Treasure Beaches display the number of completed sections over the number of unlocked sections when viewed from town.

Misc Changes

• Using the 'far flung' option in Docks bypasses encounter chances but costs money.
• Statue enemies have a flat 1x damage mult on all parts, and the 'Crumble' CondWound that deals 10% of the Max HP.
• Mimic enemies have the Bleedout CondWound on their tongue that deals 10% HP as bleeding damage.
• Additional fluff text for ashore locked chests in beaches.
• Various typo fixes.

Apologies for the delay, version 8 full release has had various internal pipeline issues, so posting the polish as a minor patch.

[ 2024-09-27 07:06:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

v0.8.b_13 has been released to beta, v0.8.b_12 (patch notes here) has been pushed to default. Report issues and bugs in the Steam Forums or the Audiogames.net Thread. You can find a more detailed change manifest on Github. Polishing for the full version 8 release is continuing. The tutorials in this update are a step towards that, as well as many small bugfixes.

Consequences

Punishments have been divided up into more resolution locations.

• Wounded - Now sets body condition to half at start of battle. Cure at Doctor or District.
• Damaged - Repair at Blacksmith or Appraiser.
• Cursed - Lift at Enchanter, Oracle, Shaman (node event), or attuned Altar.
• Tired - Rest off in Tavern or Library (rented rooms).
• Burnout - Resolved at Wounded, Cursed, or Tired locations.
• Bees - Wash off in exploration water or Bathe in Tavern (rented room).

Graphical Settings

The Graphical UI Tray configures autoscroll (now with speed settings), fancy mode, and the new volume sliders. You can close/reopen the UI tray with the hamburger menu button in the top left. It starts every boot open to draw attention and encourage configuring- it's really unobtrusive once closed.

NPCs

• Wolves, Bears, Bats, Drudgers, and Ents have unique name generators as opposed to a one-token list. Stock Drudgers that get promoted will receive an honorific, not a title.
• Drudgers, Harpies, and other Sapient but non-personable creatures no longer have lootable meat.
• Exceptional Honored Drudgers can have captives and better rewards to loot.
• Dead NPCs seeking retribution have a wider range of intros, reducing the chance that they receive no power boost for their revenge.
• Lumberjacks always carry Wood.
• Dryads use a new armor type- Grown Wood. This is lootable.

Locations

• As mentioned above, Oracles, Libraries, Districts, Appraisers, Altars, and Enchanters can resolve certain Punishments.
• Districts have a Heat system. Player characters that poke around too much will have services (attacking Crime Lord, healing, etc) denied until the Heat cools down.
• Altars accept more drawbanes. Monster organs (Bat Wings, Mimic Guts, Sinew) count as Meat. Sky accepts telescope, and non-Forest Forces accept Living Flames.
• Features have a tutorial entry in the Glossary Manual.

Tutorials

The Combat Tutorial, starting Story Tutorial, and Feature Tutorials have been streamlined and colorized. When playing from the Terminal, you can press 't' to get a tutorial of your current Feature, if it has one, or the Combat Tutorial while in battle. You can still access these from the Manual using the Graphical. In a future update you will be able to use the shortcut from it.

Misc

• While playing a Cheating Save, you can disable out-of-battle Punishments by enabling it as a Game Setting in the Player Menu. Punishments will still be applied in battle (mostly Curse), but will not persist between battles.
• When playing from the Terminal, input 'i' to see the player's display and 'o' to see the opponent's display- which is already displayed visually in a the Graphical, giving the two more parity.

writing tutorials is the absolute worst, glad that's mostly over

[ 2024-08-13 17:13:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

v0.8.b_12 has been released to beta, v0.8.b_11 (patch notes here) has been pushed to default. Report issues and bugs in the Steam Forums or the Audiogames.net Thread. You can find a more detailed change manifest on Github. This is planned to be the last major Beta before version 8's official release. Trawel v8b12 will (hopefully) go into a polishing stage for a couple updates, before a final v8 is put out. After, normal updates will resume again with v9 betas.

Graphical Updates

The new artstyle has made it in game! While currently the selection of armors, species, and weapons that have been implemented remains small, you can switch between the Legacy and modern art as a display option. Unicorns have their own sounds, and Harpies' sounds have been patched. The way which Music fades in and out has been changed. If you return to the old music track before it fully fades out, it will start to fade in again without switching. A tracker advances constantly which is determine where to start new tracks- this should spread out the listening time amongst all the different tracks

Consequences

Dying applies a random Punishment effect, until you have all 4 Death Punishments. They are the same Punishments used in world attribute contests, so they can be cured using the existing systems. Fighting is still possible while under the effects of a Punishment, but each impairs your ability to survive, making on-level fights much more difficult. Current Punishments being suffered remains in the 6th slot of the Player Menu, which has changed to 'Status', also including some non-item DrawBanes (Daylight, Blood, Wealth). The Raw Stats display has been moved to the Inventory sub-menu. The following Punishments were used while dying:

• Wounded - Cure at Doctor. Suffer Bleed every Impactful attack taken.
• Curse - Cure at Doctor. Have 50% less MHP.
• Tired - Rest off at Inn. Halved dodge multiplier.
• Damaged - Repair at Blacksmith. Start battles with 50% armor condition.

Displays

Non-Defensive stats got removed from the Combat Summary to quickly allow the player to determine which attack is best given the state of the enemy. Examine received a major overhaul, allowing the player to separately display their own HP/Armor/Effects, Body Condition- as well as their Target's HP/Armor/Effects, Body Condition, and Stats/Attributes/Skills.

Freeplay

Debug Trawel joins Cheat Trawel in the new Extras set of gamemodes, which also contain the old prototype sidegames. To try to discourage further real cheating, Trawel's own cheats have been expanded with more options to add XP/Aether/Currency/Time. The Manual is accessible while Cheating, and you can turn any save into a Cheating save (as well as enable/disable the story Tutorial) from the Player Menu -> Settings -> Game Settings. Cheating saves do not submit Leaderboards scores, Stats, or Achievements.

Exploration

• new area! The Beach is a new Node Exploration set. Beaches have a large branching area that contains gated Dungeons and linear Caves. The Dungeons must be unlocked by slaying a randomly occurring encounter character, whose death will inform the player of which Beach has a new area for them to explore, intending to draw players in from across the map, or back afterwards so they witness the Beach Regrow (see the Regrowth fix).
• new behavior! Clarity can be used to unlock doors and chests, rounding out the usages of Attributes in exploration.
• new behavior! DrawBanes cap at 5 attraction/repelling for each type. Cloth hides Wealth, reducing the amount of Bandit ambushes when traveling. Wealth and Blood calculations have also been tweaked slightly to avoid scaling too quickly.
• fixed behavior! Node Features regrow their contents after being expended. Regrowth has received a larger balance pass as well this update. Now, what features are regrown into are fully weighted and more events are valid for both regrowth and to regrow into, and the time it takes to regrow has been made longer on average. Groves, Caves, and Beaches see the most change, Dungeons mostly see more guardposts, and Mines eventually dry up. Graveyards do not regrow at all, this has been intended.
• new behavior! The 'Casual' node event which is used in many Node types has been changed so that the Persons within can grow irritated with the player and attack them. Peaceful Persons were not affected.

NPCs and Rewards

• new behavior! Bosses and some minibosses now have tempered equipment, making them both more difficult but also more rewarding.
• new behavior! Many NPC Jobs now have starting Archetypes, which makes them prefer certain builds that go with their equipment. Creatures can no longer learn new Archetypes, causing non-Person enemies (Wolves, Bears, Bats, etc) to be restricted to Feats valid for their starting Feat Types, meaning they won't become potion brewers/armor specialists/etc.
• new behavior! NPCs that spawn with stronger abilities more consistently spawn with more World Currency and Bonus Drawbanes to loot.

Achievements

Many Steam Achievements have been tweaked and added, as Trawel has evolved, certain behaviors have become more niche as there are more things to do, while other areas of the game were lacking. Effort has also been made to roughly categorize the achievements to make finding the ones you don't have easier, and the difficultly tiers have been updated to reflect how hard they are to complete in modern Trawel. This brings the total Achievement Count to 38.

Backend Updates

Once more, the internals of Trawel have been shifted around. The most significant player-facing result of such is that Trawel now requires Java 21 instead of Java 8. The Eclipse Termium version bundled with the game should work with your OS. Another end result is that the first save/load each time you open Trawel is slightly longer, further saves/loads after Trawel 'warms up' should be the old speed, or faster.

[ 2024-07-10 05:19:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

v0.8.b_11 has been released to beta, v0.8.b_10h3 (patch notes here) has been pushed to default. Report issues and bugs in the steam forums or Audiogames.

Wound Adjustments

Wounds are the additional effects tied to attacks. Previously, wound effects displayed alongside the hit or miss text. In this update, they were moved to combat notes, and several (such as Bleed and all bonus damage wounds) had text added to them indicating how many stacks/damage was applied to that wound. Wounds have also been buffed in intensity to give them more impact in fights, and some new ones were added in a reshuffling to try to tie damage types into stronger identities. Sharp had most of its debilitations removed, focusing on increased damage, damage over time, and empowering further attacks you make. Pierce had its (lackluster) increased damage wounds removed and the bleed chance reduced, but was given impairing wounds and the ability to damage armor. Blunt and the Elemental wounds remain mixed, as there wasn't an obvious strong identity to give them yet, but they benefit from the increased intensity as well.

Materials and Magic Stances

Magic Stances have been buffed to be around the strength of an Iron weapon, and several of their attacks have been given bonus on-hit effects. They are still worse than a normal weapon, since Iron isn't a very good material, so in the future it will be determined if they need more bonus add-on effects or more damage. For now, they are useful when you outlevel your weapons, but lackluster if you're keeping a leveled good material weapon on hand. High end armor materials had nerfs to bring them more on par with each other:

• Mythril had its base resist reduced from 15 to 14. It remains easily enchantable and with solid all around resists.
• Adamantine had its base resist lowered from 20 to 16, but its sharp and pierce resist raised from 1.1x to 1.2x. The enchantment rating was also reduced, from 1.5x to 1x.
• Sunsteel is now allowed to generate for armors. It is not enchantable (because it is steel), but has 16 base resist. This makes it better than Mythril without considering enchantments, as the other high end materials tend to not have full resistance to all physical damage types.
• Solar Gold had its blunt resist increased from 1.2x to 1.3x. It still has poor resists in general but a very high 3x enchant.

World QoL

Curse has been removed from the skills most Person can obtain. This should reduce trips to the Doctor, which previously were excessive since killing or getting killed by random NPCs could result in a Curse. Some bosses still have the ability to Curse you. Feat Fragments no longer take up DrawBane space, and the default DrawBane bag size has been increased from 3 to 5, with the Big Bag skill increasing it further to 8.

Skills, Feats, Archetypes

This list only includes new Skills, Feats, and Archetypes, but existing Archetypes, Feats, and Perks had their skills shuffled around to accommodate the new additions and provide more coherent flavor where applicable using the new Skills.

Archetypes

• Rune Blade: Grants Runesmith and Runic Blast.
• Cut Throat: Grants Open Vein, Deadly Aim, and Quick Start.
• Comestible Critic: Grants Chef, Big Bag, Bulk, and Potion Brewer.

Feats

• Heavyweight: Grants Big Bag and Bulk.
• Swift: Grants Aggress Parry and Blitz.
• Cocooned: Grants Salvage and Living Armor.

Skills

A few new skill groupings were created. Crit Skills have been expanded from just Deadly Aim to a set of skills that reward high accuracy attacks. The trigger for crit-ing has been increased from 2x roll to 3x roll. Miasma replaces most of the skill gaps caused by Curse being removed from the default skillset. It focuses on Clarity contests to apply Miasma, which each skill has a trigger for applying and a boost against enemies already inflicting with it. Some skills that repair/boost Armor have also been added, which can put your armor over 100% just like the Armor Tuning skill has always been able to. Elemental Effect Skills have been expanded. The 'mantic' series now has a 90% combined chance (up from 75% combined) to replace a failed wound roll with the elemental wound type they correspond with, which combos with the Boost line that causes a bonus effect whenever you apply an Elemental wound, from dealing Elemental damage or aforementioned 'mantic' skills.

• Fetid Fumes: When Attacked: Force a contested Clarity check at half Clarity to apply Miasma. Attackers already inflicted with Miasma suffer a -10% hit roll.
• Fever Strike: On Attack: Force a contested Clarity check to apply two stacks of Miasma. When targeting opponents already suffering from Miasma with physical attacks, deal +10% damage as Decay damage.
• No Quarter: Combines Twinned Takedown and old Press Advantage. On Kill: Gain Takedown effect and two stacks of Advantage. Takedown applies Knockout on hit once.
• Bulk: +5% Strength as MHP.
• Big Bag: Gain 3 Drawbane slots, for a total of 8.
• Press Advantage: On Any Crit: Gain one stack of advantage.
• Runic Blast: On Impact Crit: Apply a wound of the elemental on-hit enchantment.
• Open Vein: On Impact Crit: Apply Hemorrhage to prevent Bleed stacks from healing, if already Hemorrhage, apply Bleed.
• Aggress Parry: On Any Crit: Grants a compounding 1.2x dodge roll against one attack.
• Living Armor: On Armor Block: Boost your armor by +8% flat.
• Salvage: On Impactful Crit: Boost your armor by +12% flat.
• Chef: Hearty potions have double sips and apply a Padded stack on Sip.
• Ignite Boost: On Elemental Wound: Gain a compounding 1.2x dodge roll against one attack.
• Frost Boost: On Elemental Wound: Boost armor by +10% flat.
• Elec Boost: On Elemental Wound: Add 4 instants to target's action.

Misc World Additions

• Locked Doors are now an attribute contest that applies Burnout on fail instead of always succeeding. You can use Dexterity or Strength.
• Sky Cults were added to Mountains.
• Bumpers (random encounters) can steal currency from you, so Bandits on the road are still a threat even if Curse has been removed from their ability set.
• Rubies are more common from chests while Emeralds are more common from veins. You get free Rubies after leaving a Node Exploration Feature, after killing a boss.

Graphical Only

Total Deaths, Total Duel Wins, and Total Levelups have been added as leaderboards. Trying to input an invalid number will now restore the previous prompt instead of forcing you to use the number keys to input a correct number. Pressing Escape or Y/Triangle on controller will attempt to back out of 10 menus, as with the terminal input that does the same.

[ 2024-05-27 17:23:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

v0.8.b_10 has been released to beta, v0.8.b_9 (patch notes here) had been pushed to default a few day ago. Report issues and bugs in the steam forums or Audiogames.

Roll Punishments

Previously, the only Effects that lasted outside of battle were Curse and Bees. Now, Burnout, Damaged, and Tired join the party in an attempt to add meaning to Attribute Contests and other out of battle actions, such as the existing event in Mountains where you try to survive a rockslide. If you fail the event you attempt, you will suffer a punishment Effect and Burnout, which will make further attempts harder or block them entirely in some cases- until you cure Burnout by resting at an Inn or going to a Doctor. The actual punishment effects will hinder your combat potential- Burnout exists so you don't keep spamming the events now that you are already under the penalty for them. While this system applies to a few existing places, including the aforementioned rockslide, there have been Trapped Treasure Chambers added to Mines and Dungeons. These treasure chambers all have an attribute which is used to try to detect traps, and 2 to 4 traps. If you can beat all the traps in a row, you'll gain access to the loot within. If you fail, well, that counts as detecting the trap, but you'll have to recover from Burnout to try again. If you fail to detect a trap, you will be forced to try to complete a random trap, detecting it either way if you didn't already know about it. Completing traps doesn't turn them off- but detecting traps through any means makes them much much easier.

Display Improvements

• new colors! Damage Types have their own colors.
• new colors! Feature Service Usage have colors for free services, aether services, world currency services, both currencies, and special payment; to ease understanding menus. Quest Board areas also have a distinct color.
• new colors! Inward/Outward have their own colors, and the already present colors for interacting options now use more prominent colors.
• color usage! Results now use the Fail/Pass/Warn/Error colors more frequently.
• usage tweak! In some cases interrupting colors will try to revert to the prior color instead of blank white. [olist]
• Nodes revert to the visit indicator color instead of uncolored when their names include special colors, such as veins of ore/gems and plants.
• Weapons and Armor revert to the prior color after displaying their material colors.[/olist]
• bugfix! Time passing now correcting gives Background Color at night again.

Bumper/Reaction Rounding Out

Bumpers react to your Drawbanes, but are in a weird spot in that not every factor that would attract or repel creatures (such as the sunlight not being great for vampires) being an inventory item or trait of your character.

• bugfix! Bumpers rolling code was formerly bugged which made them much rarer than they were intended to be under most circumstances.
• new behavior! Daytime now discourages Vampires from showing up, and some other monsters to a much lesser extent.
• new behavior! World Currencys now attracts bandits and pirates.
• tweaked behavior! Removed most level requirements. These were intended to prevent farming bumpers at low levels, but it was meaningless since 'low level' is relative.
• tweaked rewards! Hunters in more locations award Amber when beaten, to allow it to be collected outside of Quests.
• new deathcheaters! While not standard bumpers, Deathcheaters got more primal types to complement mountain Oreads- there are now Forest, Grove, Breeze, Fountain, and Sea druids, named after various Nymphs of greek myth.

Quests

• tweaked behavior! Cleanse quests now work almost universally on Persons independent of their location, with a few exceptions for units that respawn near a boss/higher level enemy. No matter where a bandit or Wolf is, you'll get credit for the kill now!
• new targets! Drudger, Fell, Monster, and Animal have been added as Cleanse quest types. Animals include Bears, Wolves, Bats, Unicorns, etc; while Monsters are more intelligent creatures who are hostile to civilization, such as Harpies, Drudgers, and Vampires. Fell currently only includes Fell Reavers, which are also Monsters.
• new targets! Witch Hut Collect Quests now target more Drawbanes.

Currency Usage

The game split World Currency and Aether a while back to try to make looting more interesting. The core concept of having different sources be better at different loot, and prevent the player from accumulating effectively infinite amounts of money from mass melting equipment, fell flat for a few reasons. Firstly, you could convert from Aether to World Currency anyway at the Enchanter. Secondly, since Aether was still so easy to get large amounts of, this moved the gameplay to just selling it through the Enchanter as an extra hoop. To attempt to fix this, World Currency and Aether have been fully decoupled, and you can't convert at stores anymore either. However, all equipment is now sold through Aether instead of convertible World Currency. This means that Aether, which you mostly get from looting equipment, can be used to buy and upgrade equipment, while World Currency, which you get in small amounts from fights and large amounts from world actions, is mostly used for world actions. The addition of Trapped Treasure Vaults is another way to get World Currency, which will make it more interesting to get in larger amounts normally.

Misc

• fast-travel! With your Map you can take the route presented in the Compass to any town you've been to before. This is equivalent to doing the inputs listed on the Compass yourself, so any combat or social encounters on the roads/seas will remain.
• tweaked behavior! The first node in a Node Exploration Feature will not start with forced combat, and the first few layers will have less/no chance for certain loot and 'obstacle' enemy groups.
• tweaked behavior! Owning an Inn ensures you don't have to rent a room- you own the entire thing, after all.
• bugfix! Mines didn't weight their contents properly. They weighted it and then randomly selected from a node between 1 and the content they rolled.
• bugfix! Turning in Feat Fragments in a library will no longer destroy your other drawbanes as well.
• bugfix! log.txt will include an error stacktrace, not just the error message.
• tweaked behavior! Deadly Aim now is a damage multiplier instead of scaling on attack time, so it should stay viable at higher levels.
• bugfix! Graveyard now behaves better when you have nightvision.
• bugfix! Donating Lots to the town for Community Stalls no longer crashes the game next time time passes.

Sorry for the months-long wait for news, I got sick again, dragon out o7

[ 2024-03-10 00:32:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

v0.8.b_9 has been released to beta, v0.8.b_8 pushed to default. Report issues and bugs in the steam forums.
Pictured: Slice of Greap Debug Map. Greap has a more vertical layout versus Eoano, and lacks teleporters. The upper grouping of towns is mostly barren at the moment. This update has been cooking for a while now! While it lacks a centralized theme, it can be grouped into a few categories.

Worldgen

• new towns! Greap now is filled with towns. Half of them are not yet featured, but you can still travel between them, and build your own Lots.
• notable towns: [olist]
• Lunek, a creepy port city home to the Hunter's Guild and Witch Hut.
• Gopuo, with a Rigged Tower Lighthouse.
• Reahe, a merchant stall town with a Blacksmith and Enchanter.
• Mikol, a palace town with a Dungeon, Hero Guild, and Merchant Guild.
• Beola, a bustling city with a Doctor and Library.
• Xeyn, a farming town beset by unseen forces.
• Eaqu, a partially complete small town with a Graveyard.[/olist]
• new connection types! In addition to normal Roads, you can travel on small Paths or hitch a ride in a Caravan. These have different travel times, and Caravans require loading, just like how Ships require loading and unloading, and Teleports need a ritual to be completed.
• World distances increased to make travel more meaningful and progress the world state a bit quicker when moving about. Remember that you can turn off realtime displays if watching the sunlight proves annoying!

Town Features

• new feature! The Enchanter: Can enchant weapons and armor for world currency and Aether. Can also convert Aether into world currency at prices better than what Stores will offer normally.
• new feature! Hunter's Guild: The additions here will be gone into more depth in the 'quests' section, but this Guild's gem of choice is the Amber, and they focus on Cleanse quests, primarily against vampires and harpies.
• new service! Forest variant of Altar, with its own offering behavior and blessings.
• new service! Blacksmiths can Temper Armor to remove negative qualities for a price of world currency and Amber.
• new service! Inns can now have their rooms rented out, which comes with Bathing and Waiting.
• misc! Witch Hut has tweaked potion recipes, Corpsebloom fungus is a new plant.
• new node shape! Rigged Tower implements a Lighthouse.
• changed services! Traveling Features no longer just copy other features: Celebrations let you get free drinks by scavenging and watch duels, Fights give you a breadth of opponents to choose from, Oracles ramble for free, and Stores still act like stores.

Quests

• new venues! Hero Guilds, Rogue Guilds, and Hunter Guilds now offer quests, with different chances of different types of quests! Notably, their Fetch quests differ in both the legality and rewards. This also applies to existing quest board locations like the District, Inn, and Merchant Guild!
• rewards! All Quests now grant larger amounts of currency. Amber is offered as a reward for Hunter quests, and Reputation rewards got increased overall.
• new target! Cleanse quests now offered for Unicorns.
• new reactions! You can now get stopped by bandits wanting to ruin hero's movements, competition that seeks to take your ill-gotten gains for themselves, and vampires who wish to slay those who might slay them. These all count for Cleanse quests, which should make it slightly easier to complete those by doing other quests in the meantime!
• Quest Reactions grace period was lengthened to avoid besieging you with events back-to-back. Reactions are now weighted, lowering the chances of getting told directions over and over.
• Quest Targets now prefer certain Features over others (Districts, Inns, etc)- and more importantly are less likely to be in the same room as the person who gave you the quest. They can appear 0 to 5 towns away, preferring the middle range band.
• reputation! Reputation for killing world entities has generally been increased, especially positive reputation. This should feel more accurate to how much presence you are exerting in the world, with higher level enemies giving smoother scaling than before.

Misc

• 'Really Fight' and 'Really Attack' let you view a preview of the opponent's equipment, so you can choose to back out with this information.
• Wounds reworded for clarity.
• new wounds! Blackened, Jolted, Shivering.
• Added new Skills: Life Mage, Armor Mage, Belly, Deadly Aim, Potion Chugger.
• Added new Feats: Glutton, Shaman.
• Combat attack notes are now a separate option from combat debug, and on by default.
• The Expanded Bag now lets you melt items within it into Aether, either from the Player Menu or when looting if your Expanded Bag is full.
• Added Simplified attack display type that displays hit roll, total delay, and total damage.

Sorry for the wait, had a few irl ailments- dragon out! o7

[ 2023-12-06 14:21:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

v0.8.b_8 has been released to beta, v0.8.b_7 pushed to default. Report issues and bugs in the steam forums.

On Announcement Naming:

It occurs to me that it isn't Summer everywhere*, but also more significantly the seasonal boundary was crossed. There isn't much 2023 left overall, so I've changed it from 'Summer 2023' to just 2023. Somewhat unrelated I regret numbering the versions and sprints in different indexing schemes, hence dropping that as well. They were both only one off anyway, and I don't foresee that changing anytime soon, even if I do hotfixes. *citation needed

Notes

Now, on with the Patch Notes:

• Arenas received updates, the menu is modern, and there has been a major behavioral change around time. You can no longer take part in fights that are super far off, preventing accidentally advancing time. Instead, you can wait 24 hours at a time, even when there is a fight soon. The new rematches include NPCs that fought without you being there (which now happens if you don't make a bout), and they will leave after they train and level up enough.
• Furthermore, multi-round arenas now once again simulate all the rounds, even the ones you don't see. This used to be a mechanic before Trawel was even a game, but it was simplified into faking it at some point. They can take rematchers as contestants, but never in the first round against a player, to force the game to give the player a chance if they have (probably unwittingly) fed an NPC.
• Lot menu has been updated as well, and the behavior of collecting money from owned features has been standardized and the values have been tweaked.
• All features can now support fluff intro/outro text. Right now this is mostly used for named Inns and Stores, but some Doctors, Libraries, and other features use it as well. This can be disabled as a display setting.
• Saves no longer display sub-second values, and display day of week and timezone instead.
• Autosaves now occur within node exploration features. They do not occur in any other feature, and like with normal autosaves, it will only check once you enter a scene. In this case, this is having the node menu display.
• Lances, Drudger fishing spears, and Drudger anchors updated to have their own attack stances. This means that only Shovels and fists (for flesh golems) need migration to the new attack system. Unicorn horns will likely use lances as their base forever.
• Tactics have been broadened to allow for attack effects outside of skill usage. No attacks are set to currently do this due to AI balance concerns, but Takedown was added as another effect.
• A few new skills such as Twinned Takedown and updated Counter.
• Two new archetypes, Hired Hatchet and Fighting Fury.
• Archetypes now come with 2 skills + tactics/skill stance/3rd skill, as well as stats. Previous player-capable archetypes adjusted. Archmage archetype remains distinct.
• More fluff insults added to the species of Trawel to try to give the world a sense of history.
• As always major but unnoticeable bugs like materials that didn't have weapons never being rolled for armors; as well as more impactful niche bugs like deleting but not replacing skill configurations leading to oddness.

dragon out o7

[ 2023-10-09 16:31:47 CET ] [ Original post ]

v0.8.b_7 has been released to beta, v0.8.b_6 pushed to default. Report issues and bugs in the steam forums. Unfortunately, this sprint saw several developmental blockers, like the wiring in the main PC falling apart and Java 17 resisting (very successfully). The pace of updates has also been slowing down overall, so unless something changes, expect them to be closer to two weeks instead of one week. The former has been dealt with but Trawel is still stuck on Java 8, for now. Sad Patch Notes:

• Changed the way the game saves. This may have been a downgrade, the main intention was to allow updating to Java 17+, and that is still out of reach, so this might need to be reverted if saving has new issues.
• Node Features display 'inward and outward' to show if you are moving away from or toward the entrance in most cases- this is technically just displaying the 'floor', but in all current Node Shapes besides Tower, that is just how far away from the entrance you are.
• All Eoano towns (besides one intentionally left out town) have town lore snippets now. Hemo and Beal had their map location moved a bit to make more thematic sense.

Hopefully next sprint will be more fruitful, dragon out o7

[ 2023-09-22 14:12:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

v0.8.b_6 has been released to beta, v0.8.b_5 pushed to default. Report issues and bugs in the steam forums. Known Issues Updates: Currency rewards in node features are still mostly out of date, but exploration features did get fixed. There are still a few unintentionally unbalanced multifights in the game, such as wolf packs. Partial Changelog:

• As always, misc unreported bug fixes.
• Steam Achievements received a quality pass, and several were added, along with new leaderboard items.
• World updates ('WorldGen'): [olist]
• Eoano gained 2 connecting towns on existing islands, 1 whole new island with 3 towns, and larger focus on lore and thematic design, including tweaking what features exist in many current towns.
• Greap got less attention than Eoano but was still changed, plan is to focus on its status as 'world 2' after the 'world 1' Eoano is mostly settled. [/olist]
• Feature updates included in World changes:
  • Districts can house sub stores and have a defined reformation feature. For example, the Better Futures Company Camp turns into the Better Futures Company Headquarters, a Merchant Guild office.
  • Gardens start filled and slowly replenish as the townspeople tend to them.
  • Node features had rarity tweaks to their nodes, and now display their level range along with their size. More significantly, nodes can now gate progress, although currently there is no reason to not break down every door you find, and no cost to doing so. The Ancient Queen boss was added to one of the towers in the new Eoano island.
  • Altars are now dedicated to different primal forces, in this update the Forest primal force was added to the old Sky force.
  • Doctors no longer charge to diagnose, cost lowered, use modern menu now.
  • Standardized internal code for exploration features, allowing them to have weighted odds and more detailed behavior without maintenance nightmares. (IE, they got both of those mechanics and any later added ones will automatically have those mechanics as well.) Events got cleaned up a bit, as mentioned in the currencies known issues update.
  • Blacksmith has better feedback text, pricing on upgrading items changed to aether AND world currency, but less world currency.
• Improved item and stat displays, especially in regards to breaking up their text with colors.
• Tutorial Text and Feature Description text separated, latter now displays in paren instead of on a new line, making it much less intrusive.
• Legacy adapter behavior extended to music, notably for the docks.
• Barely worth mentioning, but titles for town helper were added, and how champion title code works has been changed.

As you may have noticed, this update took slightly longer than usual, but not significantly so. Dragon signing off o7

[ 2023-09-14 12:14:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

v0.8.b_5 has been released to beta. Report issues and bugs in the steam forums. Note: The previous beta was shown to be a bit less stable than expected after some live playtests, so it is not being pushed to the default branch this week. Known Issues Updates: Currency rewards in nodes/exploration features are still mostly out of date. Un-even fight balance was partially solved for dungeons, but not other instances. Partial Changelog:

• Many insidious bugs that crashed in certain contexts, or did not apply numbers properly in a way that was around correct, but not actually correct.
• Picking archetypes and feats shows which skills you already have.
• Looting now displays your current capacity usage.
• Saves now have a timestamp instead of date.
• Added an 'adventuring party' system to tower dungeons. (Can also be used on other dungeon types, but currently only tower dungeons have need of them.) You can hire companions for a token fee, and they will aid you in the 'high security' checkpoints in the dungeon, as well as the boss. They take a share of all the loot in the dungeon, but even the odds in the mass battles. They will leave if you do not visit the dungeon for a while. Fighting alongside them will increase the duration they wait at the dungeon for you before leaving. They die permanently and cannot be taken outside the dungeon, but you hire from the actual world occupants of that town, and after leaving, they return to wandering the world in their own story.
• Re-added random wandering behavior of AI. They tend to group around inns, residential districts, and dungeons with the party feature enabled.
• A deliberate balance choice to tweak neck and head damage multipliers from 3x to 2.5x was made. This may require further reduction, to reduce the 'neck meta' of unexpected instant kills.
• Legacy behavior was added to nodes and town features, most now have another feature designated as fallback art, and thus display time passing better.
• Examining weapons closely now has a more comprehensive display and itemization of attacks.
• Armor qualities have been re-added with more substance, and now are closer to weapon qualities, with the notable exception that partially negative qualities (flaws/traits/qualities) exist.
• Level display has changed from words to a number, the word tier now indicates the number of weapon/armor qualities. This means players no longer have to remember that a shoddy weapon is better than a crude weapon but less than a poor weapon to determine level, since examining weapons and armor displays their traits fully. This system was in place before, but only for weapons greater than 'legendary' tier, and it started at 'legendary' rather than level 1.
• Old leveling display adjusted to show traits/qualities/flaws at a glance.

Example of new display of armor traits:
Dungeon with NPC friends, my friends

[ 2023-09-05 15:53:07 CET ] [ Original post ]

v0.8.b_4 has been released to beta. Report issues and bugs in the steam forums. GitHub faux roadmap for the brave and foolhardy here. Known Issues: Local currency rewards (the ingame system that replaced gold, not related to the regional pricing updates from a few weeks ago) from Nodes and Explore town Features are still not up to snuff, but they're getting closer, same with mass battles with an uneven number of fighters. Going forward, the plan is to keep the main Steam branch at least the second latest version, and the Beta branch will be no more than one update ahead, if possible. This is more for upload management reasons than stability reasons, but none of the updates have been less stable than the ones preceding them, despite the shocking number of changes. I consider this more revealing of the inherently instability at this point in development than an accomplishment on my part, and am glad I choose to keep Trawel in early access. Expected earliest release of v0.8 has been moved from September 9th to the 17th of that month, but it may still occur even later than that. The intention of v0.8 is to be stable and fully featured landmark to start off post 2022 Trawel with. Actual Patch Notes: Changes from the last beta, in a VERY rough order:

• As always, many small bug fixes that weren't noticeable unless you looked very hard, or were to lesser used mechanics.
• Added 'pouch/bag', which lets you store up to 3 different pieces of backup equipment. Currently there are some issues with clearing up space if the thing you want is of a different type than what you have stored, but it works fine if you don't treat it as a full inventory and just an alternatives system. This may receive full inventory status later, but the goal right now is mostly so you can store more than one weapon. This also comes with the option to examine what you're comparing more closely, and swap what you're comparing with if you had alternatives in your pouch (which immediately equips the new item you're comparing with).
• 'You' menu categorized into different submenus, and is now accessible from Nodes, which you can save within. Saving in a Node will save your location in that node. Many of the options are new or reworked features: [olist]
• Settings menu includes display updates from last updates, and also three 'auto' options: AutoLevel, AutoLoot, and AutoBattle. These allow the player to opt out of those mechanics. AutoBattle does not resolve fights instantly, and instead shows the player what options the AI would pick before it does them. The player currently cannot stop the AI mid battle, and it doesn't instantly complete the battle to discourage fightspam.
• Character skill menu, which now has a list of all the player's current final skills on demand if they want to see the collation of their sources, instead of just telling you that that isn't implemented yet.
• Inventory with pouch, drawbanes, and a Map feature that lets the player learn the path to any town they've been in before, as well as look up lore and other information on each town they've been to.
• Society menu which holds Quests, Faction Reputation, and the revamped title system that has upgradable titles. This makes the Arena Champion titles much easier to parse.
• Saving, which works in Nodes now.
• A stats overview, mostly put in here so it's harder to press the next option instead of saving.
• Quitting to the Main Menu.
• A Glossary of game terms and mechanics. Includes explanations of mechanics and in-game-generated lists of Skills. Archetypes, Feats, Perks, Wounds, Effects, DrawBanes, Seeds, and Weapon Qualities. The scrollable menus implemented in the previous updates are put to good use in some of these. If in a debug testing save, this menu is replaced by a cheats menu. Includes the old Infodump tutorial as well.
• exit, as part of the '9 is back' reworks, many menus were made to have 9 be 'previous menu' or cancel.[/olist]
• Wound/Tactics: Added a 'tactics' mechanic which is closely related to some combat actions which now have secondary non-damage affects tied to them. Previously in Trawel, attacks could only express different mechanics through attached wounds. Wounds were overhauled to better display and handle their random chance to not roll (1/10th chance per attack, unless it uses a Keen weapon; the elementalist skills now do not reroll normal grazes), and some slight behavioral updates, especially to bleeding, which keeps getting reworked in the background every update as goals for it change. More impactfully, the wound internal management changed what wounds will roll on which body parts, and a few were cleaned up. 'Condition Wounds' are now branded as 'Injuries', and apply negative debuffs until the end of the battle, cementing their goal of acting as 'soft hp gates'. Normally HP systems have intense dissonance when a person goes from fully functional at 1HP to completely inactive at 0HP, Injuries help move the combat along by increasing the negative effects they take, and, somewhat uniquely to Trawel, avoid decreasing damage output of the inflicted when thematically possible to prevent combats dragging on forever if both participants have all their bones broken. 'Tactics' follow the same 'on attack' paradigm of wounds, but cover personal buffs or debuffs. Currently, there is a Dodge Roll, a Single Out, and a 'Challenge to attack me' tactic. Tactics are provided by some Skill Sources, but can also be called as part of a normal skill source attack. For example, Daredevils don't know any tactics and can only use them from their skill attacks, but Armor Masters can single out as a 'tactic action' from their battle menu, which doesn't deal damage, but applies the tactic effect without needing to roll an attack option with the tactic.
• 'Yore' boss added to the Dungeon of Fame. Yore's dungeon fight is a mass battle using the newly-detached-from-forts combat conditions, and you must delve his dungeon to disable them if you don't want to fight him at a severe disadvantage. This is meant to be a contrast to the Tower of Fate, which requires you to reach the top to do battle, because Yore's fight room is the first room in the dungeon.
• Cloth separated into Patchwork, Linen, and Cotton. All three, plus silk, have received minor stat changes.
• Terminal and Graphical have (for now) slightly different display options improvements. [olist]
• Graphical got several options to display time passing 'in real time'. In combat, this was already happening a fixed amount after every attack, but an alternative option to tie this the mechanical 'time delay' of actions was re-added (it was in but disabled and with bad numbers prior), instead of a pause after every action. Out of combat, a new option was added and enabled as the default: to show the world state time passing in features/towns. Theoretically this might display weird since the time could pass before or after an option is chosen, but in practice most of Trawel was configured to add time in an appropriate place, and the game just needed to get told to compute it more often. For example: when waiting for a fight in an arena, the game will now attempt to show 6 hours of waiting in 1 second instead of catching up instantly. Towns were changed to use the forest background, and this makes it much more clear when time is passing, and how much. WARNING: In most cases, 6 hours per second is quick enough that you won't be waiting long, but some Arenas only fight once per month, so you'll be sitting there waiting. Considering your character has to wait the time in more seconds conceptually, perhaps this will give you a better sense of scale- having to wait 2 minutes feels like a lot, but for them, that 2 minutes was 43200 minutes.
• Terminal got 'back out', which will likely reach legacy graphical in a later update. This attempts to leave up to 10 menus/cancel 10 options, and uses modern handling of Trawel menus to know when to stop. In most cases, the 10 is just a safety thing, since not all cancellations progress the game state, but many menus do not accept a 'back out' input in that case. You trigger this by entering '10', and '0' will back out once if you wish to do it step by step, as a safer alternative to spamming '9', which is sometimes a real choice.[/olist]

That's the major list this week/sprint, dragon out o7

[ 2023-08-29 01:10:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

This update applied to both the default (stable?) branch and the beta branch, since stable was more balanced but less bug-free, so I decided that it would be more 'stable' to be updated. Known Problems: Balance of mass fights is out of whack due to overarching changes to combatant level power scaling. Node Town Features and other Combat Town Features need yet another quality pass, especially now that the new currency system has smaller values for money. This build used a different upload method than prior windows builds. If you haven't been keeping up with the beta updates, the last few patch notes have some major changes- but don't worry if you don't have time to read them, the goal of the last month or two has been to get the game in gear for a full, major, version .8 update, which should have a more coherent list of changes, after all the changes finish happening enough to comment on them. From the last beta, in no particular order:

• The tutorial has been migrated from the 'tutorial text' after each feature to a small blurb when you enter a feature type for the first time. This only applies in QuickStart and if you choose to not disable the tutorial in SlowStart. Old tutorial is mostly used to indicate the type of a place, which may be helpful if a shop calls itself "'A Cut Above'" instead of "Weapons Store".
• Saveable display options! You'll see a bit more about these below. The coolest stuff doesn't work in the graphical yet (and likely won't until the engine swap), but if you're playing text-only mode, these will be very interesting. Even the non-interesting ones add a bit of configuration to how the game presents itself, which can be nice.
• Level scaling has changed to be on 'effective level'. You can imagine that level 0 is now level 10, and levels are 10x less impactful stat wise, for most purposes. This mostly means a level 2 person is only 1.2x the baseline instead of 2x from level 1. (Note that, in this explanation, level 1 is 1.1x the baseline.)
• Some 'non-personable' semi-personable creatures can now shout insults at you and collect money. Only fully 'personable' creatures can loot equipment, and ALL creatures, including wolves, bears, and other beasts can loot aether- but this new class of creature can collect coins/notes.
• The Highest Contribution battlescore (which was never viewable without a closer look) has been updated to be the deviation from the expected instead of a number is independent of what the expected average should be. Basically, it now tells you that 'hey, this weapon has one attack is twice as important as if they were all equal' instead of 'there is an attack that contributes 66% of damage'- the latter of which is a lot less concerning if the weapon has 2 attacks, but a bit more concerning if it has 3.
• Potion brewing text and internal behavior got cleaned up, along with some other services. Mostly just cleaning house (as covers a lot of the 'fluff' text I write in the updates, there were a lot of maintainability changes and some minor behavior fixes/tweaks, but nothing to write home about, so I don't go too in depth.) Most of the other services changes are minor, but the Witch Hut change came with an expansion of Potions to allow npcs to buy (which was bugged for most of the update) and use the potions, with some funny text if they accidentally let loose BEEEEES.

Here are the promised pictures of the new display text styles.
'None', which the graphical uses, since it displays most of the new special data in colors of text. Uses only alphanumeric text besides underscore and percent. Note that some text elsewhere uses tildes, which the old graphical doesn't handle the best, but does display.
'Narrator', the default non-graphical, to ease use with a screen reader, ideally. Uses only ASCII characters that a narration tool will likely read fine.
'Visual', a style meant to be easily viewed as a replacement for graphical coloring. Uses only ASCII characters.
'Unicode', a sample of what could be. The new graphical will likely use something like this but full on sprites instead of unicode. The old graphical could do this, but it is unlikely to receive that legacy support. These styles add better parity between the graphical's coloring and the terminal's text-only, especially in regards to health. The graphical does still show more information, but that's in a gradient. The other major deviation is how it displays people before you fight them, when asking you if you really want to do battle, although right now that information is mostly cosmetic. 'Visited' color has also been converted into text in both instances, with 'new!', '!', etc to help clear up confusion in node features and when exploring across towns. There are also some options to reduce flavor and indicator text:

• 'Flavor Text', covering random town flavor events, 'first arrival' flavor describing towns, and random taunting/boasting. All of these have no mechanical impact.
• 'Travel Text', which is mostly used to help signal how getting ambushed when traveling works. If you understand that fully, this is a reminder of what town you're going to and not much else.
• 'Locational Text' includes the current town and date. If you turn both this and Travel Text off, there won't be any indicators of the current town besides the contents and the option you selected to get there. Dates currently don't do much, but later there might be holidays.
• 'Own Name', which makes the game display 'You' whenever it would display your character's name. This lowers confusion on who you are (although one of the messages will now read 'You are you' instead of 'You are Jane'), but is often really grammatically incorrect.
• 'Other Combat Text', which just removes most combat text that doesn't include you directly. This makes mass fights a bit more restrained, but people will die and you won't be told. It is the most mechanically impactful of the display options, because there aren't other ways to get this information.

Also, in either this beta or the prior beta, legacy conversion code made the old 'there is no completed sprite for this, so display nothing to show it's not done' behavior display the closest sprite instead. Lizardfolk are now mermaids, elves are orcs, bats are wolves, etc etc. And finally, BEEEEEEEEEs have been bottled. Now you can carry bees with you everywhere instead of having to find them in the wild! Dragon uncorks her potion, but only angry bees pour out! You uncork your potion as well, but it was also filled with BEEEEEEEEEEES!!!

[ 2023-08-23 03:23:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

Continuing with the theme of regutting, many of the things that were partially replaced in the last beta now have enough substance to truly be called a rework.

Weapon Power Displays

Firstly, attacks/weapons have a new metric overview. This also came with rebalancing on every weapon and attack. The extremely misleading Highest Damage, Average Damage, and Battlescore have been switched to Impact Chance, Highest Contribution, Average Damage, and Weighted Average Damage. Highest Damage before was just the theoretical best attack's dps, times it's hit multiplier. This was misleading because that attack might be less common, it did not account for the effects of armor and dodging in practice (10x hit mult would count as 10x damage while 2x would count as 2x, despite doing the same thing). Average Damage was the same metric, but averaged amongst all attacks. Battlescore was an attempt to fix this by live-testing against imaginary people, and is the basis for the new system. Battlescore failed because it still showed the misleading stats, and labeled the misleading stats better. It also isn't perfect, but it was better. One minor issue is that it is fairly difficult to gauge weapons against a wide spectrum of armors and loadouts. This new system, like battlescore, only considers the effects against opponents of the same level. Impact chance is the % chance of all the simulated attacks had to both hit and penetrate armor. Highest Contribution is the attack that had the highest Average Damage within it, so a higher Highest Contribution means that the weapon depends on one attack more than others. This isn't a good comparison number, because a weapon that has 3 attacks would be 33% when perfectly even, but a 100 attack weapon would be around 2% if one attack was twice as good as all the other attacks. Still, it's useful if you're really trying to understand it without using it. Average Damage is what the old battlescore was. It's the average of all the attack's DPS's in a simulated environment. Weighted Average damage is that, but more common attacks 'count' for more. So if there were two attacks, and one had a 66% chance to happen and the other had a 33% chance, the former would count for twice as much. Note that, in practice, you select the *best* attacks you're presented with- but the chance of you getting an attack that is good is still heavily tied into the chances any one attack will roll into a better attack. You can use one of the testing screens under Play->Various Tests->Weapon Stat Query to call up the stats for a Weapon at level 1, 10, and 100. This can call any weapon material, and additionally itemizes the results per attack, which adds transparency in auditing the system. (Mostly for me, but anyone who has insights is welcome to use it.)

'Classless', but it's just multi-multi-multi-etc etc classing

The 'classless' system is now in enough to play and test. The flow is as follows: 1. When you use quickstart, your character randomly selects an Archetype presented to them on level up. If you do slowstart, you can select from any starting Archetype, so there is no need to startscum (like in some other roguelite/roguelike adjacent games) for better starting classless classes. 2. That Archetype unlocks Feats, which you select when you level up. This is similar to the ancient Skill system before exotic arts were implemented. Each level grants one Feat Pick and one Feat Point. The game attempts to make sure you have at least 2 Archetypes, but you only need 1 to start getting Feats instead, if you want. Archetypes have a list of 'Feat Types' (name very pending). For example, 'Armor Paragon' unlocks 'Battle' and 'Smiths' Feats due to the theme of 'Tending to Your Armor'; 'Virago' unlocks 'Mystic' 'Potions' 'Curses', etc etc. 3. Every Feat and Archetype, as well as Perks you can obtain by completing tasks in universe, gives you Skills, and optionally Attributes (Strength, Dexterity, Clarity for now). Skills don't stack with skills of the same name, but they have direct impacts on how the game is played. A lot of the old skills were used in the exotic arts system under the hood, repurposed from the even older skill system. Some of these were remade, others are original. Archetypes typically grant 1-2 skills, while Feats usually grant 2 and some Attributes on top. More need to be created, the current selection is 5 Player-useable Archetypes, 8 Player-Usable Feats, and 7 Obtainable Perks.

Examples:

Archetypes

"Hedge Mage: A perpetual novice, hedge mages aren't content to restrict themselves to one school.", gives "Frugal Mage" that increases the aether to money conversion rate in Stores, and "Arcanist", a special skill that grants an attack that can be swapped out between any source of Arcanist you have. (Similar to the old Arcanist Exotic Art, but no longer an entire class that locks you into it.)

Feats

"Unbreakable: Nothing stops them." gives 4 strength, 'Tough as Nails', which gives you a flat % chance to negate wounds, and 'Armorheart', which heals you when your armor blocks an attack. Both of these were under the old Skill system and transferred over. "Armor Painter: They paint their armor with magical dyes." gives 5 clarity, "Mesmer Armor", which uses clarity to attempt to confuse those who attack the skill user unsuccessfully, and "Armor Mage", which increases your armor slightly based on your Clarity. The former is new, the latter is still being converted from the old system.

Misc

There were also many changes to Nodes and other Features, such as Ports becoming a full Docks feature, Witch Huts getting expanded to sell ingredients and have quests to get them, and many small other changes. For around half of the time spent on this update, Nodes were so broken that they would not run, because they were, as the sprint saying goes, 'gutted'. Almost all the old nodes made it back in, although some got merged, and many got added behavior. The game also now has a system to add summons, which did not make it in, but the support is there. However, re-balancing has made a level 2 person no longer twice as good as a level 1 person in most things, so all the mass fights that aren't even are now somewhat problematic.

Wrapping Up

I am unsure if the pace of the sprints will maintain at such a high cadence- I had hoped to push updates more often, but there was just so much that needed to get fixed before it was playable again. And that is good for motivating me to keep going, but not exactly the best for quality assurance and testing. We'll see what the future has in store, though. It's been a long early access, and there's still a long way to go before I'm happy with Trawel. MINOR UPDATE (as of the 13th of August): I was able to get a working linux version on the beta (at least on my linux computer, I doubt it runs on half of the devices, but hopefully it'll run on SteamOS, which I do not have installed unfortunately). I feel like I just endured a great ordeal on par with the "Labours of Hercules", so don't expect it to work *well*, but this should pave the way for updated legacy graphical support in full on these distributions.

[ 2023-08-13 00:10:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

Once again, the Stars are Right over homa and unun. Trawel is changing. The new major beta version, v0.8.X, (the X is expected to change as the update is iterated on) will be open for public testing during August. If interested, please submit feedback on the steam forums here or in the Github Issue tracker. If you are unsure how to opt-into a Steam beta, follow this community guide. This Trawel update will focus on modernizing and re-'gutting' the entire game. Trawel was designed to be a lot simpler than it ended up being, and internal growing pains were starting to become apparent. Here at realDragon (or rather, dragon and friends), we decided to take this as an opportunity to replace core systems, such as attacks, equipment, skills, and the like. Most of these systems have similar outward expressions at first, but the allowed depth has been vastly increased, so you should find that their mechanics have become a lot more meaningful. More concisely put, these things will look similar but be more impactful, in both the short and long run. Other systems are receiving more total reworks, such as the skill system and the 'Exotic Art' implementation, which are being fleshed out as an 'archetype' system, combining both the multiclass concepts into a more classless-oriented outcome. The graphical is also planned to switch engines for a variety of reasons, which should help the ability to update it and the art in the future. The art style is also expected to change. Here are some WIPs of a potential style.


Have you ever really looked at your sword? Like, really looked at your sword. Note that this will likely be revised as the 'cuts' for 'paper dolling' (layering the images on top of each other) are settled under the new swapping and layering methods. The art/graphical update is not expected to be completed by the time the mechanics of this beta hit stable. Due to the unique data format of Trawel, the old graphical will likely have partial support even after the new one releases. The Beta will be able to be found on the standard beta branch, which you can access from the game properties menu in Steam. The current version of Trawel has been added as a 'legacy archive' branch, as it is expected there will be at least some breaking changes in how the Graphical and Text portions of the game interact. Most versions of the game can somewhat handle mismatches between the two, and it is possible that the old Graphical won't be updated, but will still work, in which case that branch might receive gameplay updates. HOWEVER, go forward with the expectation that the old graphical will no longer work past late August, as that is the earliest time the new graphical might release. Regional prices have also been updated to match platform guidelines shortly prior to this announcement, as stated in the previous news post. In some regions, the price increases were substantial. These prices were set automatically back when the price of the game was halved, and have been set automatically once more. You can view the last committed changed on the source-available github, which has 'nightly' progress, but not stable builds. The github also has an experimental project roadmap. The Beta is expected to receive an update 1-2 times per week, or more if major errors occur. Patch notes are also here.

[ 2023-08-04 19:18:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

Virtually all major systems in the game have been internally changed. The passage of time is a lot more complicated, and you might have to pass the argument 'nothreads' if your pc doesn't agree- but it should be fine. Of particular note, Attacks and Exotic Arts had changes but not enough time to refill their content (which is a recurring issue in Trawel, however this time it was for a different reason than normal- kernel upgrade issues nearly prevented this update entirely). As per normal, this beta is Windows only, but it probably runs in proton, and if you want you can snag the jar and try to get it working yourself. The biggest barrier to updating linux has been the Graphical, and the new engine will likely have no such issues staying up-to-date, but that's still a ways away. (I was able to somewhat get it working on my own machine, but reliability issues prevent me from being able to push it directly.) You can check out the roadmap here. Remember to report issues in the steam forums or in the github issue tracker! You can find instructions on how to opt-in to Steam betas in the full beta announcement which will be made shortly after this post. Priorities besides finding crashing are giving feedback on the state of damage vs armor balance, which is currently unknown, and needs work. We're at the point where we don't know if armor is too strong or too weak. Attributes also got somewhat added, and they properly replaced dodge multiplier on armor, however once again their other interactions are limited. Expect a focus on finishing the transfer of attack backend, and then a shift to the classless system, over the next week. (PS: giant pants bug might be fixed!)

[ 2023-08-04 19:17:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

Trawel has received major backend updates and systems changes, and the beta branch is expected to have a build ready as the systems solidify and are ready for the feedback phase of the changes. Additionally, regional pricing will be updated to the recommended prices for today- they were set years ago automatically. Regional price changes are expected to mostly be between no increase (+0%) and a 40% increase, averaging on the lower end of 15%. However a few regions will get a 40%-60% increase, and two exceptional cases will see an increase of around 500%. The price changes are based on the same base price of $4.99 USD- in this locale and several others there will be no change. The regional changes and further beta announcement will occur on Friday, August 4th, 2023, sometime after 12pm EDT. (This event will end one hour before the discount will, so likely within the 14 hours after that, which is displayed in your local timezone.) The actual release schedule of the beta will be announced then. Until then, the game will be on a 15% discount.

[ 2023-08-01 16:00:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

Autosaving and save slots have been added (and save time has been vastly reduced). The damage formula has also been adjusted, and the first backgrounds have been added (with a solar calendar and lunar phases!). There were also numerous small bugfixes, and some hefty display improvements. Unfortunately this update is windows only for the time being, but linux has all the required files on the beta branch.

[ 2021-05-26 06:24:47 CET ] [ Original post ]

Firstly, a huge thank you to the Gamemaker and Linux gaming communities for helping me through the errors I encountered; as well as my friends who talked me through debugging linux issues. Another important non-content change is switching from GMS:1.4.9999 to 2.3, which is like, two major versions ahead of what I was using. The two major features in this update are forts and factions. Forts can be purchased for money, and you can build features on them which increase their defensive or offensive potential. Defensive features give them advantages when defending against attackers that would seek to steal their gold, while offensive features generate gold passively. Factions are similar to merchant guild rep- right now there's the Heroes' Guild, which can turn reputation into knowledge fragments, and the Rogue's Guild, which can launder gems. Using drawbanes in forts (and alchemy, and older feature) can prove to be arcane, so I'll be writing up a few guides with which to make starting your path on this game routes a little bit easier. Trawel also got a new background artist, so hopefully you'll see some backgrounds in the near future! :D If anyone notices the giant pants bug in the new update, would you kindly send me a message through the discussion forums or github issue tracker, as I'm hoping but not certain that that engine upgrade stamped up that bug (but can't test it on my machines since it seems to be gpu related).

[ 2021-04-24 07:07:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

What goes bump in the night, you ask? Monsters! They lurk just beyond the fringes of towns, waiting to pounce! Drawbanes finally have their originally intended purpose released- to attract and repel monsters. Want to attract wolves? Bring some meat. Want to attract vampires?! Cover yourself in blood! Additionally, the skill system has been scrapped in favor of a more... class based one. Delve deep into the esoteric arts! Master hunting, witchery, the elements, and even being drunk! There are many other small additions to the game, just waiting for you to find them! The price of the game has also been halved.

[ 2020-11-03 05:17:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

Potions and Plants have been added to Trawel! Just find some seeds by talking to dryads about their forest, or even find some bee larvae in bee hives! Then, once you have some drawbane reagents, combine them at the witches hut in hemo! SFX has also been updated!

[ 2020-05-21 19:13:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

This small update adds blood to the inhabitants of Trawel, as well as numerous small improvements and fixes. Most notably, disk write errors shouldn't happen again. Ever. Finally, an 'old' branch has been introduced, which will hold the previous stable update, in case you want to save it, such as when you grow attached to a character.

[ 2020-05-18 00:37:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

Some minor but significant improvements were made to the graphical, including bloodstains, more easily distinguishable choices, and sounds.

[ 2020-05-17 03:31:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

Exploring the wonderful world of Trawel has never been better! With the advent of the travel guide, remembering those sprawl of towns has never been easier, and new landmarks in groves make it more feasible to navigate their branching paths. A merchant guild has opened in unun! As you may have noticed, you can no longer buy items above your level... but the merchant guild changes that. Donate to increase your reputation and stores will happily let you buy items that allow you to crush your foes! Currently, the only thing you can donate is 'DrawBanes' which will become more important in a future update ;)

[ 2020-05-15 16:10:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

As some of you may have noticed, Trawel has a beta branch! It can be located in the same way all steam beta branches can, in properties -> betas. This is a good way to preview the new content, or if you want to have the latest, cutting edge updates. Note that these builds are beta for a reason- they are much more likely to have bugs and crashes. If you'd like to contribute to the development of Trawel, feel free to contact realDragon about bugs found through the steam discussion forums or the github issue tracker! Although this announcement is a limited time event, Trawel's beta branch will be continuously updated, often daily.

[ 2020-05-14 10:04:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

Combat has been updated to include wound effects, which increase the depth of choice presented by combat. Additionally, the Tower of Fate and Stairs to Hell now have boss fights with corresponding achievements. Finally, wolves are no longer humanoid.

[ 2020-05-12 22:13:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

Music has been added to Trawel! Also yes, I am still alive.

[ 2019-10-02 23:15:04 CET ] [ Original post ]