Renown - June update - News from the Redesign

As always, thanks for checking out the latest in Renown. It's been a fairly long patch cycle, and we've got some good stuff to go over. We've overhauled some of the game's most foundational systems, made significant quality-of-life improvements, and taken our first real steps toward making Renown more accessible without sacrificing depth.

A link to our combined patch notes, from early this year to the latest, can be found here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1488310/view/?l=english

Rethinking Progression: A Redesigned Research System

The biggest change in this patch is one you'll feel immediately: the research system has been completely redesigned from the ground up. The old system forced you down a linear path. If you wanted a specific item, you had to buy everything leading up to it, including things you'd never use. Based on the way it was originally coded, we had no ability to change or modify the tree. The new system is category-based and non-linear. You can spend directly into what you want, when you want it. Spending heavily in one category makes that category progressively more expensive, while other categories become cheaper to compensate. But it's the player's choice to make. The total gold you'll spend to reach a fully researched loadout stays roughly the same. What changes is the freedom you have over how you get there.

Inventory & Economy

We've done a full pass on inventory systems and UI across the board. Autosort is back. It's been rebuilt from scratch with proper duplication fail-safes and missing-item prevention. The previous version was very unreliable, regularly causing lost items and other issues. We're hoping this new version will add the intended quality of life, while still being completely reliable. All items now occupy exactly one inventory slot, with the exception of weapons, which take two.

The hotbar has also been freed up

any weapon can go in any slot, so bows are no longer locked to your primary. On the economy side, everything has been rebalanced around one-month wipes.

This has been a significant recalibration

gold costs, store prices, siege equipment costs. All adjusted to reflect a longer server lifespan. Servers now also restart every 24 hours rather than every 90 minutes, which should put an end to sessions getting cut short at the worst possible moment. The Rogue Trader now stocks every item available in standard stores (minus faction-exclusive items), at a premium. Faction shops remain your best rates.

Factions

A couple of targeted fixes to make the faction system less punishing for new players. Factions now start at Level 1, and you need to drop to -30 reputation before falling to Level 0. That buffer exists so you can make a few mistakes or just learn how the game works, without immediately getting attacked on sight by guards. Factions will also gradually forgive reputation loss over time. Faction swapping is now limited to once per hour. You shouldn't be able to flip allegiances on the fly to game the system, and now you can't. Faction shops have also been fixed: all factions now have a shop, stocking full Tier 1 and Tier 2 sets. The Brimdurn shop is no longer locked behind a key room.

Parties

The party system has been rebuilt. Parties now persist across sessions, so you won't log back in to find your group dissolved. The new management UI lets you create, manage, invite, kick, and join parties cleanly. Parties can be password-protected for quick, secure joining. Owners can promote or demote members, and if the owner leaves, leadership transfers automatically based on member rank. This also lays down the foundations of several systems for when we're able to scale up the size of player groups.

Combat

Archery

We've made a meaningful push toward skilled archery, feeling rewarding rather than RNG-dependent. Random bow spread has been cut from 20 down to 5, and Projectile speeds have been increased across the board. The War bow now correctly sits above the Longbow, and the Crossbow has been significantly buffed. Landing a shot on another player now refunds stamina, rewarding precision and making sustained archery viable in extended fights.

Quarterstaff

The Quarterstaff has been repositioned as a reach weapon. Damage drops from 24 to 15, but range increases from 2.7m to 4.0m. This is now the longest melee reach in the game. It can no longer be crafted; treat it as a valued find. If you like controlling space and forcing opponents to fight on your terms, this is your weapon.

Rondel Dagger

The Rondel has been reworked into something with an actual identity. Attack speed is up roughly 50%. Slash and overhead damage drop significantly, stab damage comes down too, but the miss penalty has been slashed from 10 to 3 stamina. The play pattern is relentless pressure and staying in your opponent's face, playing up the feeling of being in a high stacks Knife Fight.

Siege

Catapult and Trebuchet boulder damage has been reduced substantially (1000/1500 down to 400/600), but boulders now deal splash damage (200/300 respectively). The intent is to push both attackers and defenders toward more tactical thinking — defenders can't just honeycomb every wall with furniture, and attackers need to identify real breach points rather than hammering a single tile. Silver costs for both have been significantly increased to reflect the monthly wipe cycle.

What's Next?

This patch lays a lot of groundwork. The research system redesign has been in the works for a while, and we're glad to have it in your hands finally. We'll be watching how the new economy balance plays out closely. The shift to monthly wipes changes a lot of variables, and we expect to keep tuning. Ultimately, all this is leading up to our next "Free to play" wipe.

As you might have guessed from reading above, we're looking at running this event for a whole month. There is still a ton that can go wrong, but we're hoping you'll be happy with how much has changed since Early Access.