The Crafting & Combat Update : Weekly Update #4

Weekly Update!

Hello! Welcome to our Fourth Weekly Patch Notes!

As promised we have returned to the Thursday/Friday weekly update (a day early this time), and remain on schedule for our final release in August!

Just like all weekly updates these patch notes are divided into the Default Branch and Beta Branch Updates. This week the previous Beta Branch has been rolled into the new Default Branch completely.

The new Beta introduces a lot of new features and polish focusing on abilities, combat, and a huge focus on UI.

Hope you all enjoy the update!

-Lansdolli

DEFAULT BRANCH UPDATE:

NEW FEATURES

This week's default update focuses mostly on companions, enemy abilities, Mount Greywind, ability balance, combat polish, and several important save and progression fixes.

The biggest changes are aimed at making companions feel better long term. Their early stats have been toned down, a bonding system has been added for companions that unlocks more dialogue as well as an individual companion quest. Companion XP has been reworked so its awarded to each party member individually now allowing for a high level player to still level low level companions.

Abilities had a large overhaul specifically regarding buffs, debuffs, and status effects. Some abilities have been rebalanced to better fit their tiers and color coding as well as visual icons have been added to help easily identify when someone is under the effects of a buff, debuff, or status effect.

Mount Greywind has also received a base upgrade pass. The old Infirmary upgrade has been removed and replaced with several store upgrades, letting you build useful shops directly at your base.

There are also several fixes for zone bosses, saving and reloading companions, combat messages, ability descriptions, and duplicate prompts.

This build the same as the beta build from last week with no changes.

Mount Greywind

Base Store Upgrades: The Mount Greywind Infirmary upgrade has been removed and replaced with several new store upgrades.

You can now build the following shops at Mount Greywind:

• General Store

• Weaponsmith

• Armoury

• Forge

• Alchemy Lab

• Arcane Repository

Each upgrade opens that shop directly at your base, making Mount Greywind much more useful as a base you can operate out of.

Companions

Companion Starting Stats Rebalanced: Xen, Elara, and Una now start at 1 attack and 1 defense. They were too strong early and could carry the player harder than intended.

Companion Bond Progression: Companion loyalty and bond thresholds have been added. Unlocking deeper dialogue and companion personal quests.

Companion Quest Log Section: Companion personal quests appear in their own Companion Quests section in the quest log.

Downed Companion Dialogue: Downed companions now use a unique line about falling back to Greywind where they can be added back into the party.

Companion XP Rework: Companion XP has been reworked. XP from a kill is now split across the active party, then scaled based on each party member's level compared to the enemy. This means lower-level companions can continue gaining XP even when the player is far above the enemy's level. In some cases, under leveled companions will receive a catch up bonus. This fixes companions earning little or no XP when traveling with a high level player.

Save and Reload Fix: Fixed companions dismissed to Mount Greywind resetting to level 1 after saving and reloading. Their level, stats, and bond now persist correctly.

Enemy Abilities

Enemies now have their own assigned abilities. They require mp to use just like the players and all enemies now have their own mana pools and mana regen mechanics to allow for this to happen.

There has been a lot of work to make sure enemy abilities function correctly and are somewhat balanced. However this is likely still the buggiest part of the update.

After defeating an enemy you can now see their ability in the Grimoire.

Combat

Color Coded Buffs and Debuffs: Debuffs and buffs now change the color of the value they’re affecting. This should make it easy to tell at a glance what's currently being affected by buffs or debuffs.

Buff and Debuff Rebalance: Buff and debuff values have been rebalanced to scale by tier.

Strong Buff Drawbacks: Powerful buffs now come with drawbacks where appropriate. For example, Blood Frenzy now costs HP.

Elemental Debuff Icons Restored: Elemental debuff status icons are back and now appear next to the affected character's name.

Last Stand Reworked: Last Stand now makes the user unkillable for 2 turns, once per combat.

Iron Body Reworked: Iron Body now grants +15% defense for the rest of combat. Its message also no longer clears instantly.

Enemy MP Regen: Enemy MP now regenerates 2% of max MP per turn, matching the player.

Class Ability Restrictions: Class-defining abilities are now locked to their correct classes. This includes Frostfire Bolt, chromatic spells, and Venomblade signature abilities.

Ability Description Fixes: Several inaccurate ability descriptions have been corrected, including Titan's Blow.

Steel Weapon Text Cleanup: The Steel tag has been removed from steel weapon descriptions.

Combat Menu Polish

Ability Preview Cleanup: Removed the cluttered inline preview text that appeared after combat abilities.

Not Enough MP Message Fix: Fixed the Not enough MP message flashing by too quickly to read for both the player and companions.

Added More User Prompts to Avoid Disappearing Messages: Many combat messages were clearing before they could be read. This fixes that issue!

Duplicate Prompt Fix: Fixed the duplicate Press Enter to continue prompt appearing in dungeons and after using a damaging ability in group combat.

Zone Bosses

Road Patrols: Zone bosses now patrol strictly on roads instead of wandering across open terrain.

Chase Behavior: Zone bosses can still leave the road to chase the player, but will return to their road patrol afterward.

Existing Save Correction: Existing saves will auto-correct zone boss patrol behavior.

Zone Center Spawns: Zone bosses now spawn closer to the center of their zone instead of appearing near the starting area.

Bug Fixes

Fixed companions dismissed to Mount Greywind resetting to level 1 after save and reload.

Fixed companion level, stats, and bond not persisting correctly.

Fixed companion XP failing to scale correctly when the player was far over-leveled.

Fixed low-level companions earning no XP in some high-level player situations.

Fixed the Not enough MP message clearing too quickly.

Fixed duplicate Press Enter to continue prompts in dungeons.

Fixed duplicate Press Enter prompts after damaging abilities in group combat.

Fixed zone bosses spawning too close to the starting town.

Fixed zone bosses wandering across open terrain instead of staying on roads.

Fixed zone bosses not returning correctly to road patrols after chasing the player.

Fixed several inaccurate ability descriptions.

Fixed Iron Body's message clearing instantly.

Fixed elemental debuff icons not appearing next to affected characters.

Fixed companion personal quest confrontations triggering outside their intended zones.

Fixed downed companions reusing the dismiss dialogue line.

BETA BRANCH UPDATE:

NEW FEATURES

This update reworks crafting from the ground up, overhauls combat targeting and presentation, and gives every enemy a real ability kit.

All enemies have been given a unique abiltiy that function correctly and works with MP, this should add more depth to combat and help give the player more avenues to pursue in combat.

Crafting has just been implemented and with its own new crafting skill.

Finally, I've really been working to fine tune targeting and the combat UI to have a cleaner and more finished look and game balance. The player should feel significantly stronger in this patch than previous patches. I hope that comes across well and you all like the new combat!

Thanks for playing the beta!

New: Gated Crafting

• Recipes are now something you learn, not have by default. Find or buy recipe scrolls and read them to permanently add them to your repertoire.

• Craft at any Weapon, Armour, or Alchemy shop through the new Craft tab.

• Recipes drop from enemies (matched to their tier) and turn up in dungeon Forgotten Caches.

• Each of the 15 zone bosses guards one unique capstone recipe available nowhere else.

• There is a new Crafting Skill! Earn skill by reading crafting recipes or by crafting items.

• Evolve your crafting skill to a higher tier to be able to craft higher tier items and upgrades.

Combat Overhaul

• Full roster targeting: press T to cycle through every enemy, ally, and yourself. Any attack or ability can target any combatant, so you can heal or buff a chosen ally (or yourself) directly.

• Redesigned combat screen: clean bordered panels for your party and the enemies, aligned columns, uniform health bars, level indicators, and a marker showing whose turn it is.

• All status effects now apply correctly and display as clear colored tags like [BURNING], [POISONED], and [DAZED].

• Defend tooltip removed to avoid clutter and instead shows the boosted value after using it.

• Smoother, flicker free redrawing. Switching targets no longer ticks the round forward.

• Balance changes increase the players base attack

Enemies & Abilities

• Every enemy type now has its own fixed, hand tuned ability set, all catalogued in the Monster Grimoire.

• Enemies carry mana pools and cast level appropriate abilities that use that mana pool.

• New enemy mechanics: taunt and fade targeting, gold stealing Pickpockets, mana drain and silence, and curses that sap your maximum health have been retooled to ensure they apply correctly in all scenarios.

• Reworked buff and debuff system: stat changes stack, respect sensible caps, and are color coded in the HUD.

Companions

• Edited some Personal quest chains for your companions

• Companions now share experience fairly with the rest of the party.

New Combat Screen

• A cleaner text aesthetic throughout (all emojis replaced with readable tags).

• The combat screen has been redone to better empasize party combat. Parties are clearly separated and extra information has been removed

• Combat UI has been reorganized to make the game more readable and for a player to more easily asses the battle at a glance (should compliment the colorcoded and text based status conditions)

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a quest being overwritten on save and reload.

• Fixed map misalignment for three character location labels.

• Fixed enemy stun and freeze occasionally striking the wrong target.

• Fixed various companion bugs

• Fixed duplicate "Press Enter" prompts in dungeons and after some abilities.

• Restoration for MP works correctly, plus potion menu fixes.

Thank you for playing Greywind's Legacy. As always, we read your feedback, so let me know how you are feeling about the game! Any feedback is incredibly helpful!

Future Plans:

The main three goals of last patchnotes still hold true, balancing the game through tweaking the abilities and class system a bit, removing any bugs, and further standardizing the game/ui are my main goals.

I also plan to revist the old arena system to see if I can rework it to better fit the game.

Hopefully its apparent that we are taking some big strides in improving most of these categories of the game with this update and I hope to continue chipping away at these issues in the coming weekly updates =)