New Factions, Character Creation Options, Perks, Sandbox Content, and more!

Hi folks,

Our 1.2 patch is finally here, and it is massive. As always, your save files will continue to work, and you will be able to complete your games in progress. However, once you are finished with your current game, you know what to do to fully experience the new changes and additions. ;)

Instead of the usual highlights, I thought to record a video this time. It did turn out a bit longer than I had hoped for, but then again, so is the list of changes and additions.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=NthyxeBtf6w

Still, if you prefer, you can read the patch notes below instead.

As is inevitable with such huge patches, if you encounter any issues, let me know. I will do my best to fix them as soon as possible! Bugs aside, we'll be talking again in a month or two, as the work continues. Have fun!

16/03/26 # 1.2.05

Bugfixes

• Fixed an issue where Ritual rolls in Diplomatic Exchange incorrectly triggered Religion rolls.

• Unique items no longer display the hint that they can be deconstructed, as they can't.

• Fixed a script error that occurred when feeding consensually from a companion in the camp.

• Fixed an issue in the Actor editor where the portrait selection UI could sometimes display the same portrait twice.

• Fixed an issue where zero-duration elemental damage was also applying its new associated statuses.

• Added a missing tooltip for Fame in the Manage Party UI.

• Fixed an issue where the new resisted damage report was returning 0 instead of the actual damage resisted.

• Fixed an issue with the calculation of retaliate damage resistance, which in certain cases could consume more defense than intended.

• Fixed an issue where hovering over the "Return" (to Contracts UI) button would sometimes retain hover information from a prior discovery.

• Fixed the hint to press Shift+K to open the item inspector, so it properly shows up while bartering or in the exchange UI.

• Fixed a regression in the AutoProgress bias code; it will now correctly advance the actor toward their highest skill perks.

• Fixed a regression in the AutoProgress bias code that could prevent the actor from buying weapon proficiency perks.

• Fixed a potential conflict between end-of-turn ripple effects and certain statuses.

• Fixed an issue introduced in the previous build that could prevent players from buying perks with no requirements.

Factions

• There are 7 new factions: Ember Dawn, Dauntless Pioneers, Resurgant Tenebris, Order of Light, Via Aurum, Blood Coven and Underworld.

• Contract work and other decisions in stories or quests will affect your relationships with the various factions and the first/initial impression of their members.

• Added codex entries and tooltips for the new factions in the game. You can view your influence with them in the party management screen.

• When generating NPCs based on their profession, aspiration, and personality traits, each random NPC is now assigned to a faction. This will also give them access to the faction specific perks when these are added.

• When handling contracts with adversaries or contractors, their own allegiance will determine whether you gain favor or disfavor with their given faction after completing or botching them.

• When handling lair contracts, the type of contract and how much it aligns with each faction goals will determine your favor or disfavor with a given faction.

• Before picking up a contract, you can now see which factions it will affect below the reward. If the contractor or adversary is unaligned, this display will be blank, this will be the case for NPCs you already met in games from before 1.1.98 update.

• The faction influence cannot drop below -100 or exceed 100.

• When meeting an NPC for the first time, you will now make an impression to them based on their faction and your standing with that faction. This value will range from -15 to 15. The negative impression will accumulate 2x faster, than the positive. ie. having -50 with the faction will also set the initial impression with that NPC to -15, while you'll need 100 to get their initial impression to +15.

• Assigned a faction to some of the story companions.

• The aspiring adventurer companions are factionless.

• The dauntless pioneer companions are of the Dauntless Pioneers faction.

• Each week, inter-party relationships will change based on faction ideologies after checking for party cohesion. If this drops your relationship with a party member below -50, you will have one week to change their mind before they decide to leave due to friction.

• You can join a faction after reaching 30 or more influence.

• This will immediately reduce your influence with the remaining factions by 10.

• You will instantly gain the faction perk and access to unique faction perks.

• You can change factions later while retaining the benefits of any faction perks you have already earned, but you will lose access to the perks themselves.

• Interfaction conflicts where the contractor and adversary are of the same faction will yield either favor or disfavor based on the specific faction. Blood Coven, Resurgent Tenebris, and Underworld appreciate conflict even within their own ranks. Order of Light, Ember Dawn, and Dauntless Pioneers do not. Via Aurum stays neutral during interfaction conflicts.

• Added a new setting: Sisyphus' Curse, which is off by default. When on, it will unscale the world and remove the maximum cap on enemy levels. No matter how much you level up, they will scale up to meet you.

New Content

• Added 107 new perks.

• Added Nephilim and Cambion as playable species (standard portraits).

• Added new perks for the Angel and Demon Dauntless Pioneer companions.

• Added a new Snake Charmer perk tree and Snake summons to Perform.

• Added new Dire Wolf summons and Primal perks to upgrade the Grey Wolf to a Dire Wolf.

• Added an upgradeable weapon to the Smithing tree and buffed Smithing perks overall.

• Added 4 upgradeable elemental (Weapon) Orbs in the Enchanting perk tree that are governed by the Enchanting skill.

• Added new Ripple effects and their codex entries.

• Added new Oscultari portraits.

• In character creation: you can now choose a background. There are currently 27 backgrounds to choose from.

• AddedIn character creationadded a merged view of the Species/Heritage/Background benefits. You can choose to hide the lore, and to switch between the summarized or analytic display of the gameplay benefits.

• Added the option to ask a vampire companion to turn you if you are not already a vampire or immune. This is available in the Socialize menu if Sandbox mode is active, Corruption is at least 50, and Relationship is at least 50.

• Added the option to ask a werewolf companion to turn you if you are not already a werewolf or immune. This is available in the Socialize menu if Sandbox mode is active, Corruption is 15 or less, and Relationship is at least 50.

• Elemental damage with a duration of 1 or higher will now automatically apply the corresponding status effect. Fire applies Burning, Water applies Drenched, Ice applies Frostbite, Air applies Asphyxiate, Lightning applies Shocked, Earth applies Crushed, Astral applies Echo, Dark applies Cursed, Light applies Purified, and Acid applies Corroded. For example, when an action applies Burning, it means that the target 'suffers' damage at the end of each of their turns. These statuses do not have an effect of their own other than damage over time, but they can now be used for different ripple effects or passives.

• Added new lair and enemy archetypes:

  • Lizardfolk, will start showing up in lairs after level 5.

  • Highwaymen, will start replacing Bandit lairs after level 8.

  • Necromancer, will start replacing Undead lairs after level 9.

  • Cultist, will start showing up in lairs after level 10.

• The formerly Dauntless Pioneer, and Aspiring Adventurer companions were redistributed among the various factions and can be found in Inn common rooms across Elos.

• Added 17 new companion characters distributed among the various factions and towns.

  • The new distribution for all the non-story companion is now:

  • Llanford: Day (Ren, Darcy, Harlan, Wyll), Night (Vargas, Maeve, Kaelith) - Level 1

  • Heygrove: Day (Joran, Bramus), Night (Tabitha, Trajan) - Level 4

  • Keywick: Day (Caelthorne, Celestine), Night (Elizabeth, Corvax) - Level 4

  • Valetport: Day (Lirael, Silas), Night (Isolde, Corvin) - Level 8

  • Ponthill: Day (Aethryn), Night (Hilda) - Level 6

  • Ashwick: Day (Maera, Vaelen, Khorag), Night (Durgan) - Level 10

  • Denham: Day (Kaelen, Falka), Night (Nyxara, Cassian) - Level 12

  • Doven: Day (Aurelia, Seraphina, Valerius), Night (Lysandra, Malakor) - Level 18

  • Oxgate: Day (Baldrik), Night (Remus) - Level 5

  • Lacris: Day (Marra, Sebastian), Night (Dexter) - Level 13

  • Hamor: Day (Zahra, Khalid), Night (Zarethra) - Level 20

• Changes to the optional Daily Upkeep setting:

  • The base daily upkeep will now start at 4 (plus modifiers) instead of 3 to accommodate the new faction modifiers.

  • Additionally, friends will receive a -1 discount on daily upkeep, while lovers retain their -2 discount.

  • Rivals and hostile companions now receive an increase to their daily upkeep of +1 and +2, respectively.

  • Vampire, animal, thrall, and wraith companions have discounts of -1, -2, and -3 to reflect their reduced needs.

  • Faction alignment and clashing ideologies now also affect daily upkeep, ranging from a +3 extra cost for clashing ideologies to a -2 discount for similar or aligned factions. This is determined by the companion's perspective; for example, Via Aurum perceives the Order of Light differently than the Order of Light perceives Via Aurum. Therefore, whether you are Via Aurum and the ally is Order of Light, or vice versa, will affect their upkeep accordingly.

  • After all modifiers are summed, the daily upkeep can no longer drop below 2 or exceed 9 per level, regardless of how liked or disliked you are.

  • The total daily upkeep per character is capped at 80 for Normal and lower difficulties, and 105, 130, and 155 for Challenging, Hard, and Deadly, respectively. It can never exceed those amounts per character, regardless of level or modifiers.

  • For example, a level 10 character on Normal difficulty can have a daily upkeep ranging from 20 to 80 Farthings, and 20 to 90 on Challenging and above, as they cannot exceed 9 per level.

QoL/Misc Changes

• You can now compare a hovered item with the currently equipped item in that slot by pressing Shift+K. Or just view its description and associated actions in the item inspector. You can do this while hovering over an item in your inventory, stash, or barter UI.

• Added an isUpgradeable flag to Actions to notify the UI to show the Upgrade recipe when applicable.

• Vampires in Sandbox mode now start with the Preserved Blood and Elegant Carriage recipes.

• Added support for starting as a Duskwalker in the Vampire sandbox; this option is available after completing certain Vampire arcs and earning any of these three achievements: Mirran Jethal, Unity, or Chosen of the Pale.

• Pay and CanPay Lua functions now check and use the entire party inventory for payments.

• In Perks Editor: generate description will now leave intact the flavor description prior to the benefits, separator is 2 br tags.

• Updated various species and heritage descriptions in Character creation.

• Updated the character sheet to display fatigue (or hunger) and corruption in a more visible spot. For companions, this displays corruption and daily upkeep.

• Improved the templating of Elemental DOTs.

• Added support for ripple effects to check for the statuses above and distinguish between dealing damage (ie. Fire Damage) instantly, and applying the effect (ie. Burning, where the target 'suffers' the damage as opposed to you 'dealing' it).

• When damage is resisted, the log will now display how much of it was resisted.

• Added a button in the combat log to progressively increase its size until it finally cycles back to the original size.

• Added support for dispelling elemental damage statuses (e.g., Dispel Burning), which will also remove those damage stacks.

• Added support for perks that improve the magnitude or duration of elemental status effects. For example, Burning Duration will only increase the duration of Burning and will not add duration to a Fire Damage effect that does not have one.

• Added a "return to the Contracts UI?" prompt after leaving a contract to view a linked character sheet or destination. This helps you return to the specific contract category you were previously viewing.

• Improved the code in the requirements parser to avoid any potential issues caused by certain system localizations.

• Deconstruction hints and item recipes, if known, will now be shown only in the Item Inspector to declutter the item descriptions.

• The types of successful and failed contracts are now stored persistently and represent your Party Reputation. For example, Lair contracts will increase your party reputation as Adventurers, while Silence contracts will increase it as Cutthroats.

• Party Reputation can be viewed in the party management UI.

• Opening the Contracts UI is now also available outside town borders if you want to view active contract details.

• The tile information displayed under the world clock will now also display the current region.

• Streamlined local fame loss and gain after completing or botching contracts.

• Recipes can now have Perk Requirements.

• Added Perk requirements to various unique recipes granted by perks.

• Changed various Esotericism and hybrid Esotericism perks from Air bonuses to Lightning bonuses & Water to Ice bonuses.

• Buffed Marshwalker Boots and Marshguard Armor.

• Further boosted the contract rewards for Lairs.

• Reworked the fame system and reputation titles.

• Added a Manage Party button to the Overview, Inventory, and other UI screens, along with navigation to the Manage Party UI for quicker access.

• The party management screen can now always open, even if you do not have any party members to manage or are currently in combat, etc. You still won't be able to remove or add party members while in combat, downtime or a conversation.

• The combat log now supports drag and drop, allowing to reposition it during combat. Repositio is not persistent, and the log will revert automatically to its normal spot at the start of the next combat.

• The preferred combat log size is now persistent.

• Added tooltips in the various contract types.

• Changed Dauntless Pioneer tag and perk requirements to "Dauntless Pioneers" to better support future systems. Note for existing games: this will cause saved Dauntless Pioneer companions to lose access to Dauntless Pioneer perks, but they'll retain any existing perk benefits already stored in their save.

• Improved various enemy graphics.

• BandEditor's Clone, can now follow different build paths creating more distinct variations from the same enemy template.

• AutoProgress will now properly honor Blacklisted perks.

• GenerateInventory now takes into account the Tribal, Organized, and Well-Funded tags to determine the net worth that applies to a given actor. Some enemies was tweaked accordingly.

• Local Fame can no longer drop below -100 or exceed 100.

• Assigned a faction to the various merchants. This only affects their initial impression.

• Removed the Dauntless Pioneers hall from Valetport.

• The various Inns now have an icon on the map.

• Reworked the structure of the various Inns to include their own hub with the inn room and a public room to meet the various guests.

• Implemented "Back" functionality in TileInspector for nested places (Activity:Back)

• There's now a 20% chance that each randomly generated NPC is Unaligned.

• Added new faction perks and faction-exclusive ripple effects.

• Ripple effects now support "target_has_any_{Stat}" and "self_has_any_{Stat}" as conditions.

• Ripple effects "target_is_{id}" and "target_is_not_{id}" now support "Hostile" and "Ally" as IDs.

• Introduced a chance for NPCs to diversify in AutoProgress after purchasing too many consecutive perks from the same tree.

• While hovering over an actor in the Manage Party screen you can now view their faction.

• In Perks added quick filters for Species & Heritage perks

• In the relationships screen you can now view the actor's faction as well.