KickStarter Stoneshard - open world roguelike RPG - now available on Early Access

[cpmartins]

Everyone who bought it in EA and is complaining about it being late:

NEVER buy EA.

 

[jackofshadows]

Dude I've paid like 3$ for this. Money is not the case, it's rather a matter of principle.

 

[Tygrende]

Another person shocked to discover some people have an issue with being repeatedly lied to. More news at 11.

 

[Darth Canoli]

I WANT THOSE SWEETIES!!

 

[Gradenmayer]

Man, if you buy Early Access don't expect anything, but dev's big dick shoved up your mouth 5 months later.

Person paying to be a QA tester for a game is peak mental degradation.

 

[jackofshadows]

Allright, all that EA nonsense aside, after actually playing this for 2 days I have a more important concern about the game: weird scope vs progression ratio. So far it feels great and satisfying, by the end of its current content even w/o extensive grind and whatnot, you can learn all the skills from your main weapon branch and some utility ones. Or you can mix it up, add some crowd control or more utility, whatever. In other words, the build is almost complete. You will be able to learn even more utility, especially since some skills are still missing like Armor or Survival but I'm sure as hell they will not raise your power curve much. Same goes for gear: who knows what pieces are stored for later but you can already buy knight-tier armor and weapons and fully enchant all of that (enchantment system is utterly retarded by the way, just give the option to choose it ffs it's not a MMO).

Imagine if in Diablo 2 by the end of act 1 normal you'd have next to mid-late tier gear and an almost finished build. How much inducement to continue would you have then (even if challenge was there, unlike in D2).

Now look at this:

The first two villages are suppose to represent something like 15% tops of the game. I'm sure it might be changed later but it doesn't show promise in the context above.

The XP curve is odd, too. It's not steep enough imo and at the same time XP rewards aren't that different for enemies on a different power scale which simply encourage low lvl grind. Although the game is grindy in general and it's not necesserily a bad thing since combat is truly good and satisfying. But for how long?

Anyhow, back to where I started: it's all depends on THE update which may not even come out.

 

[Tygrende]

Allright, all that EA nonsense aside, after actually playing this for 2 days I have a more important concern about the game: weird scope vs progression ratio. So far it feels great and satisfying, by the end of its current content even w/o extensive grind and whatnot, you can learn all the skills from your main weapon branch and some utility ones. Or you can mix it up, add some crowd control or more utility, whatever. In other words, the build is almost complete. You will be able to learn even more utility, especially since some skills are still missing like Armor or Survival but I'm sure as hell they will not raise your power curve much. Same goes for gear: who knows what pieces are stored for later but you can already buy knight-tier armor and weapons and fully enchant all of that (enchantment system is utterly retarded by the way, just give the option to choose it ffs it's not a MMO).

Imagine if in Diablo 2 by the end of act 1 normal you'd have next to mid-late tier gear and an almost finished build. How much inducement to continue would you have then (even if challenge was there, unlike in D2).

Now look at this:

The first two villages are suppose to represent something like 15% tops of the game. I'm sure it might be changed later but it doesn't show promise in the context above.

The XP curve is odd, too. It's not steep enough imo and at the same time XP rewards aren't that different for enemies on a different power scale which simply encourage low lvl grind. Although the game is grindy in general and it's not necesserily a bad thing since combat is truly good and satisfying. But for how long?

Anyhow, back to where I started: it's all depends on THE update which may not even come out.

I remember the devs saying that the progression is hugely accelerated right now, will be slower in the final product. Tomes are also a placeholder for trainers, they are supposed to still exist but only as a supplement to trainers.

 

[cyborgboy95]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/625960/view/2960541017173003682

Devlog: Changes to Mechanics

Hello everyone!

The City of Gold update is going to be the largest one yet not only in terms of content, but also the overall mechanics. The introduction of the global map will greatly affect the progression and will be the first step in making it work as originally intended - and that’s where tweaks to the mechanics come into play. Today we’ll address some of them in this devlog and tell you about every important change to the combat system.

Spoiler

Let’s start with the most important change: splitting the Protection stat between different body parts. The current Protection system is a remnant of those times when Stoneshard was envisioned as a simpler and shorter game. Every piece of armor increased the unified Protection stat by a certain amount, affecting all incoming strikes and allowing, say, plated boots to protect the entire body.

This resulted in a number of issues: the stacking of resistances and heavy armor was way too effective, allowing to almost entirely shrug off most enemies’ attacks. We decided to abandon this system: Protection, as well as Damage and Bleed Resistances, granted by each individual piece of armor, now affect only their designated body parts. Helmets only protect the head, cuirasses - the torso, and gloves - just the hands.

This makes middle and late game combat noticeably deadlier, strengthens the role of individual pieces of equipment, and allows more flexibility in armor progression - before the City of Gold, heavy helmets only granted 2-3 more Protection than the mail coif, but now the difference is quite substantial.

Finding the balance between the offensive and defensive playstyles will become more important than ever: the heavy plate is safer, but takes a toll on Energy; on the flip side, light and medium armors provide less defense, but allow using skills more liberally.

The shown numbers are subject to change


Protection, just like Block Power, now also affects the incoming Magic and Nature damage, but only with 50% effectiveness: you’ll need 20 Protection to fully soak 10 Fire Damage
Changes to Block

As you may have guessed, the Blocking mechanic was affected as well, gaining some extra depth. Meet the new stat:
Block Power Recovery
.

Before the rework, it didn’t really matter how hard or how many times you got hit on the shield: if your Block Power was high enough, you were completely invulnerable to enemy attacks. Now, however, Block Power is expended by blocking, representing the exertion and the loss of balance, and then slowly being recovered each turn.

Let’s say you have 25 Block Power and 20% Block Power Recovery. An enemy strikes you for 25 Damage: you block it, spending 25 Block Power, so you’re left with zero. After that, 20% Block Power Recovery replenishes you 5 Block Power: if you block another attack during the next turn, you’ll receive 20 Damage.

This way prolonged fights, especially against multiple opponents, will quickly drain your Block Power, so you’ll have to use your resources more strategically or rely on specialized skills.

Naturally, shields were affected by this change the most. They lost their innate Protection and gained higher Block Chance and Block Power to compensate for it. Other than that, shields were roughly split in three categories: light, medium, and heavy.

The shown numbers are subject to change.

• Light shields
  have the lowest Block Chance and Power, boasting a large bonus to Block Power Recovery instead: they block limited amounts of damage, but they do so with reliable effectiveness. Certain Shield skills also grant them additional bonuses.
  
• Medium shields
  are a jack of all trades: they have decent Block Chance and Power, but lack the bonus to Recovery, making them a balanced choice for defensive playstyles.
  
• Heavy shields
  have a huge bonus to Block Chance and Power and can withstand some of the most devastating attacks. But woe to you if you run out of Block Power in the middle of a fight - heavy shields Recover incredibly slowly, so unless you invest into the specialized skill tree, you risk handicapping yourself with an unwieldy, heavy piece of equipment.

Accuracy Calculation

In the current version of the game, the hit chance formula is very simple:

Hit Chance
, % = The attacker’s
Accuracy
- The target’s
Dodge Chance


We decided to change it by splitting dodges and misses into two distinct categories: there’ll be two independent checks for the attacker’s chance to hit (depends on their Accuracy) and the target’s chance to perform a dodge.

At the same time, Accuracy over 100% still reduces the target’s Dodge Chance, and the negative Dodge Chance contributes to the attacker’s Accuracy.

Changes to Dodge

Now to the next important change - the new Dodge system.

Initially, Dodge Chance was a completely secondary stat, and we didn’t plan making dedicated Dodge builds a thing. This changed with the introduction of the Dual Wielding skill tree, when we tried adding some dodge-focused gear and the “Berserk Tradition” passive that granted a huge Dodge bonus to characters without armor.

That experiment wasn’t very successful. The issue with its current implementation lies in the “all or nothing” conundrum: you either take no damage or you take it all. Dodge builds revolve entirely around stacking Dodge Chance, running a very thin line between invulnerability and being borderline unplayable: sometimes it’s possible to consistently avoid all damage only to have your character annihilated by a single instance of bad luck..

To sum it up: Dodge builds ignored a large portion of available gear, mindlessly stacked a single stat, and were overly reliant on two key skills (Elusiveness and Berserk Tradition) - none of it worked with the rest of the game.

That’s why we listened to our community and changed Dodge in accordance with the suggestion made on our Discord server by @WatcherOfArabia, that was also supported by other players: instead of simply negating all damage, performing a dodge turns
successful attacks into fumbles, and fumbled attacks into misses
.

This way Dodge becomes more nuanced, functioning as an important stat with numerous applications. It can be combined with light and medium armors (their lower Protection is more manageable with the 50% Damage penalty on fumbled attacks) or with more aggressive playstyles that focus on applying
Stagger
and
Fumble Chance
debuffs with skills, passives, or certain consumables.

The “Berserk Tradition” passive was remade as well - it no longer requires you wearing no armor and has different mechanics and bonuses associated with it.
Other Changes

The rest of the changes aren’t that massive, but they are still worth mentioning:

• Most conditions and injuries were rebalanced to make them more distinct and to increase the influence they have on gameplay.
  
• Being knocked back into an occupied tile now applies Daze instead of Stun. This was done to prevent stunlocks and counteract the strategy of abusing doorways and corners, which is way too effective in the current version of the game. Stun now grants a significant bonus to Control Resistance, which should also make stunlocks much less frequent.
• Some effects received a rework:
  Wetness, for instance, now has stacks that depend on the overall duration of the debuff. The longer you stay under the rain, the stronger the effect. Rain now also causes metal items to slowly degrade
• Skill trees received short descriptions with keywords, meant to help new players to quickly understand their theme and possible synergies..
  
• There were also some changes to main Attributes, but more about them later...

That’s all for now! Stay tuned: we’ll begin revealing the upcoming update’s content starting with the next devlog.

 

[Harthwain]

The City of Gold update is going to be the largest one yet not only in terms of content, but also the overall mechanics.

In short: another rework.

I love the ambition behind this game and all, but this is one of the things that slow down their progress so much, because they are constantly reworking things, which is bound to eat into development time. That said - it sort of makes sense that they're making changes in response to feedback for a game that's in an Early Access. Also, this is clearly not a scam when you constantly put up upgrades this significant. If they fail it certainly won't be for the lack of trying, but due to them being overly ambitious mad men who go all in and end up being broke. But I am willing to root for people like that, because these people have vision and spirit in them. Or spirits. A lot of spirits.

 

[jackofshadows]

Yeah I like all the changes after dipping in the game's mechanics but it's another huge slice of mechanics to test, do more changes etc etc. 2025, my ass, I wish I've stumbled at this somewhere around that time. On the other hand, I got some enjoyment out of playing the EA already.

s. Also, this is clearly not a scam when you constantly put up upgrades this significant.

Hello-o-o, there wasn't any yet. Just words. We'll see.

I remember the devs saying that the progression is hugely accelerated right now, will be slower in the final product. Tomes are also a placeholder for trainers, they are supposed to still exist but only as a supplement to trainers.

Makes sense, to allow to test builds etc. Allright then.

 

[Harthwain]

Hello-o-o, there wasn't any yet. Just words. We'll see.

They were doing reworks all the time (I mentioned some already in this thread) when updating the game in the past. So I don't doubt this is coming. The question isn't "if" but "when". And how long it will take them to get to the finish line at this rate.

 

[jackofshadows]

Hello-o-o, there wasn't any yet. Just words. We'll see.

They were doing reworks all the time (I mentioned some already in this thread) when updating the game in the past. So I don't doubt this is coming. The question isn't "if" but "when". And how long it will take them to get to the finish line at this rate.

If messing with sheets numbers wise means significant to you then it's all good.

 

[Harthwain]

Hello-o-o, there wasn't any yet. Just words. We'll see.

They were doing reworks all the time (I mentioned some already in this thread) when updating the game in the past. So I don't doubt this is coming. The question isn't "if" but "when". And how long it will take them to get to the finish line at this rate.

If messing with sheets numbers wise means significant to you then it's all good.

Because that's all they are doing... Read the update again.

 

[Tacgnol]

I love the ambition behind this game and all, but this is one of the things that slow down their progress so much, because they are constantly reworking things, which is bound to eat into development time.

Sounds like Stoneshard forever.

Did they hire George Broussard as a consultant project manager?

 

[Abu Antar]

 

[Alienman]

Cute.

 

[Abu Antar]

Say what you will about the vaporware status of the game, but they have talented pixel artists. Rarely has pixelated food looked this yummy.

 

[Salvo]

Say what you will about the vaporware status of the game, but they have talented pixel artists. Rarely has pixelated food looked this yummy.

Stoneshard's artist is great, he's just super slow

 

[Harthwain]

Stoneshard's artist is great, he's just super slow

They have three artists:

Stoneshard Credits

Stanislav Leonov
Creative Director, Artist

Andrey Britikov
Artist

Denis Momotov
Artist

Source: https://stoneshard.com/presskit/sheet.php?p=stoneshard

 

[cyborgboy95]

 

[cyborgboy95]

 

[Hrymr]

Looks like it's November now.

The next major update (City of Gold), planned for this November, has been in the works for quite a few months and will include all the new features mentioned in the recent devlogs.

Spoiler

https://steamcommunity.com/app/625960/discussions/0/4931994385953912053/

 

[cyborgboy95]

 

[Abu Antar]

 

[Abu Antar]

Devlog: City of Gold Release Date & The Latest News

Hello everyone!

Let’s start with the release date: as many of you might already know, the City of Gold update was moved to November due to a number of reasons. And today we’re ready to announce its exact release date -
November 18
. This date is final, so make sure to set up a reminder!

Now to the latest news. We’re currently working on bringing the city to life, setting up NPCs and implementing side quests, many of which will have multiple paths and long-term consequences. Even though we would be happy to give you details, it’s not possible without getting into spoilers, so we’ll let you discover the secrets of Brynn streets by yourself.

Here’s a teaser just to get you started. And in return we’ll tell you about many other things that will be added with the City of Gold:

We haven't yet finished setting up NPCs, so you can expect the end result to be much more lively.

Spoiler

NEW ENEMIES

The bestiary of Stoneshard will see many new additions: other than mid-tier Proselytes (this topic deserves its own devlog), there’ll be a few other dangers to watch out for when exploring the world.

Deathstingers

“Deathstingers are the scourge of the local woods. A large enough swarm of these sizeable insects can make short work of pretty much anything or anyone”


Deathstingers are large and very aggressive insects that form swarms around their hives in certain points of interest. Their primary strength lies in numbers - until a Deathstinger hive is destroyed, it will periodically spawn new swarms, maintaining their number.

But even a single Deathstinger swarm can cause a lot of grief: these things are hard to hit, and even successful strikes don’t deal much damage. On top of that, the less Health a swarm has, the higher its chance to dodge future attacks, although its own attacks will deal less damage as well.

Crawlers

“Crawlers make their burrows in deep woods, where they hunt small wildlife. Other predators do their best to stay away - crawlers' blood and bites are venomous, and their ability to almost instantaneously heal their fragile carapaces turns any encounter with them into a battle of attrition”


Needless to say, we had no choice but to introduce giant spiders into the game - therefore, meet Crawlers. You’ll be able to encounter them in the woods, but fortunately for you they won’t stray far from their burrows. Crawlers are dangerous predators for quite a number of reasons.

First of all, they are capable of spitting liquid webs, immobilizing and weakening their victims. Just as with Mancatchers’ nets, it will be possible to untangle yourself from them by skipping turns.

Crawlers’ huge size makes them rather frail - to compensate for this shortcoming, they have an ability to quickly regenerate any damage done to their chitinous carapace. Each turn Crawlers restore some of their Armor Durability, which also grants them additional Resistances. At the same time, they don’t have much Health, so the best weapon for hunting Crawlers is something with good Armor Damage and Penetration.

And finally, their blood is corrosive. Fighting Crawlers in melee will get you sprayed with it, dealing Caustic and Poison damage. This damage is also increased by each Injury or Bleed affecting a Crawler.

Harpies

“Initially, harpies inhabited only the ridges of Aldorian foothills, but now they can be encountered across the entire realm. Their habits haven’t changed in the slightest though: these perpetually ravenous beasts are still the source of constant nuisance, attacking livestock and lonely travelers”


Harpies are enormous scavenger birds that can be found across most of Aldor. Hunting them requires a strategic approach: make sure that you bring a net or two with you or have a way to quickly cripple their wings - Harpies get significant combat bonuses while they are in the air.

Upon spotting their prey, Harpies swiftly close in to intercept it, so archers and mages will have a hard time keeping their distance - until a Harpy’s wings are injured, their mobility skill has no cooldown.
Harpies usually attempt to intimidate and confuse their victim with deafening screeches, then surround it from all sides, trying to peck out the eyes. Harpies’ heinous stench also doesn’t make fighting them any easier, causing coughing and the urge to throw up.

Despite all that, Harpies are incredibly cowardly: when threatened by defeat, they immediately try to take off and fly away a few turns after beginning their retreat, leaving you without valuable feathers and other trophies.

NEW THROWABLES

No one expects you to face new dangers without new tools, so we added a few bombs with different effects.

Nistrian Flame Flask

“The recipe for Nistrian flame, the flasks of which occasionally find their way to Aldor, still remains a secret despite the efforts of many talented scholars. Alas, no one has yet invented an alternative that burns at least half as well”

Deathstinger Jar

“The only reason why this deadly weapon is barely ever used is that any attempt to encase a swarm of enraged insects in a fragile container is incredibly dangerous”

Spider Blood Flask

“Certain alchemical procedures can prevent crawler blood from curdling, allowing it to be stored in glass containers for prolonged periods of time. This creates many new possibilities ranging from using it in further alchemical experiments to throwing it in combat”

BODIES OF WATER

And finally, the first look at rivers and lakes:

Bodies of water have a whole lot of mechanics tied to them, ranging from the basic option to fill a waterskin to swimming, combat, and special interactions with some abilities.
When your character is in shallow water, moving to another tile takes two turns. The distance of dashes is affected as well.

Upon entering deep water, the character begins to swim. The main thing to keep in mind is that swimming requires Energy - each traversed water tile will consume some of it. If Energy reaches zero, your character will drown, dying instantly. Swimming Energy Cost is affected by many factors: certain active effects, Injuries, and also whether you have heavy armor equipped.

On top of that, you can’t use weapons when in deep water - all attacks will count as unarmed, stats like Block and Counter chances will be disabled, and taking damage will burn Energy.

The same rules will apply to your enemies too. Some of them will be unable to swim at all, actively trying to avoid entering deep water.

Once we get closer to implementing Alchemy and cooking, we also plan to add a fishing system, but for now it’s way too soon to get into any details.

================================

That’s all for now. Until the next devlog!