Demo Update - Custom Difficulty, Terrain Upgrade, Key Rebindings, and More!

This update adds a new difficulty, the ability to rebind keys, some major upgrades to the terrain visuals, adds some quality of life to dungeons, and many other smaller changes.

Custom Difficulty

Custom Difficulty is a new difficulty option that lets you play the game however you want. There are over 25 different modifiers you can edit to make the game as easy, hard, or wacky as you want.

These modifiers will allow you to change things like how much gold you receive from various sources, mana generation, core stats of characters and buildings, experience rates, enemy spawn rates, and more.

Key Rebinding

All keybinds can be remapped now. Just open the Pause Menu -> Settings -> Keybinds.

Terrain Visual Improvements

The terrain has been completely rebuilt using an improved system. The texturing on the terrain is now more varied and detailed. Grass, flowers, and other little details have been added to further improve the look.

Here are some before and after images.

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

The added details may affect performance for some people. Details can be turned down or off completely by going to Settings -> Graphics -> Terrain Details

Dungeon Changes

A few changes have been made to Dungeons.

Dungeon QoL Once a Dungeon becomes available, you will have control on when you want to start a new Dungeon run. There is also an additional menu that lets you control which Guilds will be considered and how a Guild is selected. If you prefer to stick to a more passive approach, you can toggle Auto to ensure that Guilds automatically start new Dungeon runs whenever possible.

Guild Resolve Guild Resolve is a new resource that is replacing Guild Tokens. Guild Resolve can be seen as a segmented bar below the Guild name in the Guild List UI. It slowly generates over time and can be consumed to send a Guild on a Dungeon run or a Guild Quest.

Guild Resolve will generate more slowly if Heroes in the Guild are dead, so keep your Heroes healthy!

Dungeon Camera and Minimap The Dungeon Camera operates much more similarly to how it does in the overworld now. Rather than being centered on a specific Hero, the camera will use an isometric perspective. The camera will still be bound within a reasonable distance of the Guild.

There is also now a minimap for dungeons! This minimap cannot be clicked on to move like the overworld minimap can, it simply shows an overview of your location.

Research Changes

• Blessing of the Phoenix has been reduced to 1 rank. It now causes Heroes to revive 40% faster instead of 35%/70%. - Recruitment Drive 1 and 2 have been merged into a single Research, giving the effects of both combined. - Professional Proficiency moved from tier 4 to tier 3 in the Resources Research. - Rekindled Resolve added to tier 1 Heroes Research. Increases each Guild's Resolve generation by 75% when its Resolve is less than half full. - Expedited Apprenticeship added to tier 1 Resources Research. Increases the rate at which Peasants are recruited and apprenticed to a Job by 50%. - Second Chance added to tier 3 Defend Research. Grants Workers a buff that fully heals them and provides 15 seconds of damage immunity when they drop to 0 health. This effect can only occur once per Worker. - Workers Respite removed. - Union of Deflection removed. - Fortune and Glory removed.

Balance Changes

Difficulties Hard and Nightmare Difficulties have had their modifiers changed a bit. They no longer have increased Incursion rates and instead have more Elite/Champion spawns along with higher spawn rates in general.

Hard: - Enemies and enemy structures have 30% more health - Enemies spawn 50% faster - Elite Spawn Chance: 5% - Deadly Incursion Chance: 15%

Nightmare: - Enemies and enemy structures have 60% more health - Enemies spawn 100% faster - Elite Spawn Chance: 10% - Champion Spawn Chance: 5% - Deadly Incursion Chance: 25%

Other Balance Changes - Incursion spawn rate has been reduced slightly. - Gold gained from trading with Settlements has been reduced moderately. - The Main Keep has had its health significantly increased. - Guard Towers and Mage towers have had their health and damage significantly increased. - Guards have had their health significantly increased. - Elites can no longer spawn before day 3. - Champions can no longer spawn before day 5. - Elites and Champions have had their health and damage reduced. - Normal Enemies (not Elite, Champion, or a boss) have had their damage slightly increased. - Scouts and Rogues have had their health and armor slightly increased. - Rogues enter stealth quicker and their Stealth Advantage buff lasts longer. - Guild Renown requirements reduced.

Behavior Changes - Heroes are better at staying focused while on a Guild Quest. They may become distracted by combat, but will usually be quick to get back to their Quest. - Heroes are more interested in Quests overall and are less likely to be disinterested in them just because the Hero has become too high level for the Quest.

Other Changes

• Icons will appear over a building if the building is destroyed or queued for a repair/upgrade. These are turned on by default but can be turned off in Settings -> Gameplay -> Show Building State Icons. - Incursions will now show a 3 minute warning before they start, to help you better prepare. - Windowed mode is now flexible and can be maximized correctly.

Thanks for reading! I have a few more demo updates planned before working towards content for Early Access/Full Release and I'll be posting a roadmap giving more details on the future demo updates sometime in April.