New Adventure Actions, Quests, Wealth Ranks, Rest Stops, Bug Fixes and a Puzzle!

Well met, good heroes. We are psyched to roll out a major new Feature Patch today, with a host of new gameplay options, bug fixes, and quality of life improvements. Let's take a look...

Buffs/Debuffs are Working!

As we mentioned in our last update, Buffs/Debuffs are now correctly modifying hero rolls, meaning it's now super important to use your facilities wisely to treat heroes with negative conditions.

New Adventuring Actions

Balanced Spirit Cost: 2 Special Effect: None

Aggressive Spirit Cost: 3 Special Effect: +15% power, -10% success (lower chance to succeed, but contributes more points upon success)

Precise Spirit Cost: 5 Special Effect: -20% Power, +10% Success (more likely to succeed, but contributes fewer points on a success)

Cautious Spirit Cost: 10 Special Effect: -30% Power, Failure still contributes 25% to success (contribute fewer points, but guaranteed to contribute something)

Support Spirit Cost: 10 Special Effect: Boost power of next hero’s roll (if a hero doesn’t have any relevant skills, they can spend their action boosting the roll of the next hero).

Stop and Rest These changes mean Spirit can deplete a bit quicker on the road, so we’ve also added a couple breaks to your traveling day. Whenever your party pauses for a Rest Stop, if spirits are low, you can click the REST button to spend two hours recuperating and regaining spirit before resuming your journey.

Wealth Ranks Every hero is now assigned a Wealth Rank, which increases over time as they earn gold in their travels. Heroes prefer food/drinks appropriate for their Wealth Rank, which means the old approach of just loading up your menu with the single most expensive food/drink will no longer be effective. You’ll need items at a variety of price ranges to keep your heroes happy.

Fantastical Crimes Unit content overhaul!

The lobby scene in the game has been changed to more closely mirror the chaotic lobby scene from the comic.

All FCU quests have also been revamped and up to four of your heroes can now be deputized as FCU agents.

A Cross-Platform Puzzle!

We’ve hidden a puzzle in both the game and our new comic-book spinoff, Tales from the Fantastical Crimes Unit. To begin the hunt for a secret ending to the Flaming Gate storyline and uncover the most powerful artifact in Epic Tavern, follow the clues from the comic into the game and back. Your first clue (printed on the inside cover of each issue) is to send Emilia Mortalis and Victor Marshall on the quest Crossover Eve and keep your eyes open for new clues.

Pick up your copy of Tales from the Fantastical Crimes Unit at comic shops everywhere or at: https://www.wisdumbproductions.com/

Itemized Change List

Update/Fix - Re-inserting space between Epic and Tavern in PlayerSettings Product Name so the game is looking at the right save folder (this is an issue introduced in 2018.2.1 maybe? - Removing extraneous space in front of PlayerSettings Product Name - Fixed ListItemRegister prefab, which had blown up on import to 2020 - Fixing more borked TMP-related prefabs - Chain Request prefab - Map Adventurer Portrait Object prefab - ListItemEventAction prefab - PortraitObject prefab - AdventurerToolTip started - ListItem_Trophy - PANEL_AdventurerToolTip - PANEL_AdvLevelUp - PANEL_TrophyViewer - PANEL_TrophyViewer (more fixes) - Fixed a few errors with TrophyFirstQuest - Fixed errors with unlocking new trophies - Fixed weird asset bundle errors where it was leaving the prefab out in brokenspear and wasphead - Made sure trophy unlocking was saving and loading - Removed a bunch of vestigial post messages - ET Project Settings adjust script order execution to prevent race condition bug with trophy reload - Fixed trophy race conditions with Log Out and Log In by changing script order execution for TrophyPlacer. Long story - Fixed trophy unlock pop-up race condition - Fixed trophy unlock pop-up missing trophy representation - Misc build prep updates - Fixed bug where, upon log out and log back in, newly placed trophies would overlap (trophies were getting double populated) - Refactored trophy loading and placement to be more stable and work better with log out functionality - Fixed issue where trophies weren't populating correctly upon return from map (trophymanager vars weren't getting reset properly when leaving scene) - Potential fix for hang on break camp - Potential fix for hang on 2nd party setting out - Potential fix for party portrait overlap that also created a prog blocker - Trophy bundles are now loading and processing upon game start, fixing bug where loading directly into map caused a hang - Fixed bug where top of turn screen gold count wasn't updating with goods mgmt purchase - Created script that listens for Bank.cs gold count update Action and attached it to top of turn screen gold count UI object - Made nullgood serves much less common - Adjusted messaging on drink chains - BUG FIX: Stomp/Pick Your Poison Choice Not Working. What happened: Looks like someone left an extraneous 'PF_charHeadDisplay' in the root of the Tavern Hierarchy. It was causing there to be spawned an extra PANEL_CharInfoDisplay with a null FollowTransformUIObject. - Fixed race condition where new trophy pop-up couldn't find ManagerTrophies (only in Build!) - Fixed orphan script references in PANEL_DEBUG and PANEL_EffectorsTooltip prefabs - Corrected data issue that allowed Victor Marshall (Fantastical Crimes Unit) to be unlocked in error on the Undermarket storyline - Corrected data issue preventing quest 'Cellar Dweller' from unlocking properly. - Corrected data issue preventing quests from unlocking properly in quest chain: By the Book - Corrected data issue preventing quest 'Bound and Determined' from unlocking properly. - Corrected data issue preventing quest 'Neighborhood Watch' from unlocking properly. - Corrected data issue preventing quests from unlocking properly in quest chain: No Good Deed - Corrected data issue preventing quest 'Return to Blackheart Manor' from unlocking properly. - Removed errant links to quest chain: Map Quest - Removed errant links to quest chain: The Gnoll Problem - Corrected data issue preventing quest 'No Man's Land' from unlocking properly. - Corrected data issue preventing quest 'Serenity Gauntlet' from unlocking properly. - Corrected data issue preventing quest 'Nighty Night' from unlocking properly. - Corrected data issue preventing quest 'Hail to the Queen' from unlocking properly. - Corrected data issue preventing quest 'Half-Orc Needs Bath, Badly' from unlocking properly. - Various fixes relating to making skill checks work - Various fixes aimed at reducing the number of red x's we are facing in the drink chains - Corrected reward issue on quest 'Frame Rate' - Corrected text issues on quest 'Training Day' - Corrected reward issues on random encounters - Corrected data issue on quest 'What Lies Beneath' - Updated buff/debuff data to use current Encounter Type numbers - Skill Checks working - Buffs/Debuffs working - Some methods recategorized into more appropriate classes (mostly Stage.cs -> AdventurerData.cs or SkillAttempt.cs) - Removed errant space in buffs/debuffs readout

New Content -Quest Chain: The Lepre-Con. Leprechaun con artist Shayla O'Leary is up to her old tricks. Help Victor Marshall round up a crew to put an end to her latest shenanigans. -Game/Comic crossover puzzle -Revamped all FCU content -Heroes present for first trip to FCU are now deputized and receive trait: FCU Agent

Coming Soon: Skill Checks, Tavern Trophies, and Hand-drawn Hero Portraits

We’re also putting the finishing touches on a pair of new features we’ll be rolling out soon… Skill Checks and Tavern Trophies!

Skill Checks are a game-altering addition that we’ve long been anticipating as a way to bring more of the tabletop experience to Epic Tavern. We’ll soon have the ability to make a single character roll against a single skill before or after the main encounter. Some practical applications…

• Perception checks that increase or decrease the difficulty of the encounter that follows. * Perception checks after an encounter to find extra treasure. * Locksmiths can attempt to crack locked chests to gain bonus loot. * Saving Throws! Save for half damage from the dragon’s fiery breath. Save vs petrification or poison, and even the dreaded Save vs Death are coming very soon.

This feature is already working in our test build and we’re currently designing the UI for it.

We’ve also already created several dozen trophies that you can unlock during your adventures. For instance, rescuing Flustercap from the Abominable Snow Ape will earn you a Netherling in a Box toy, while failing gets you a Flustercap memorial for your tavern. The successes and failures that make up your history will soon be proudly displayed on your tavern’s walls.

Artist Steve Mardo from our comic is also working on a collection of hand-drawn hero portraits that will soon be taking the place of the current procedurally generated ones. Norman Henderson, Grusilla Marrowsucker, Victor Marshall, Murgul Flametongue and Emilia Mortalis.

We Want To Hear from You Epic Tavern streams development every M/W/F on Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/epictavern). Mondays at 7pm EST: Narrative Chat with Tomo and Shawn Wednesdays at 7pm EST: Let's Play with Tomo Friday at 4pm EST: Bug Squashing with Rich

Dev Chats on Discord Every Thursday at 1:30pm EST, join Tomo and Shawn for an open voice chat about game design and storytelling where we field any questions from our players. https://discord.com/invite/epictavern

This is an exciting time as we work on the final features necessary to complete the main gameplay experience and get Epic Tavern out of Early Access. Once the remaining features are in, we'll undertake a full tuning pass where we'll be cranking up the difficulty on many gameplay elements that are currently a bit too overly forgiving. The crew at Hyperkinetic Studios really appreciates your patience during what was a challenging stretch of development during the pandemic. The finish line is now very much in sight.