But of course~ That would definitely raise passerby's attention, let alone original followers'.Yes yes, I think you've discovered the way to get Codexers to change their minds about this game's graphics. laclongquan
wew is this end game armorWe're continuing with the overhaul of the Valrenay textures (and further down the road with the Scarres textures too).
Here's the refreshed Blade Dancer
Also the weeklong deal on Steam is ending soon if anyone one wants to grab the discounted version - https://store.steampowered.com/app/1001040/Glorious_Companions/
Hello there, Companions!
We're happy to announce that you can buy Glorious Companions cheaper for the Steam Summer Sale's duration. While we're at it we wanted to show you some of the stuff from the upcoming update that we plan to release in July.
First of all, as you can see in the image above, we'll be releasing our visual overhaul of the Valrenay race. Our goal was to make them more consistent, so they all look like they're from the same faction. We also wanted them to fit better into the fantasy world of Navaroth, which the previous iteration hasn't quite achieved.
We decided to focus solely on the textures and not change the meshes, as that would require us to also update the animations, etc. (Though the Blade Dancers and Gunners will probably receive new Run and Idle animations)
Another big change that we're implementing is an actual Dialogue System that will enable us to create more meaningful and immersive quests. It should greatly improve the interactions with NPCs while making the whole world feel more alive and organic. Here's a rough WiP of the new dialogue window (of course the important stuff happens under the hood):
Those are only a few of the things that we've planned for the next update, so keep an eye out for the full changelog when the patch airs (or perhaps another devlog that'll go into more detail about the upcoming update).
Also consider leaving us a review if you like the updates that we keep pushing out, it matters a great deal to us!
Let us know your thoughts in the comments and remember to follow the game for more updates!
I guess we can add it in the game's settings.
Today we’re releasing the Update 0.6 that introduces a completely reworked Ability System and a glorious Visual Overhaul for the Valrenay race among many other things. Other notable changes are the new Dialogue System and over 40 new abilities for you to choose from. We’re also putting the game on a -40% Weeklong Deal!
Let’s dive right into what the update brings into the game:
Valrenay Visual Overhaul
We weren’t quite happy with how the Valrenay race turned out in our first attempt. The main problem was that they didn’t look cohesive, but the design also seemed too modern on some of the units, not exactly the steam-punk vibe we’ve imagined for them. The other issue was with their armors that lacked detail.
For those reasons we’ve decided to redo the textures on the units themselves and on their armors. They now look like they actually are a part of one army, the details on their clothing and armors are greatly improved and they share a common color palette. We’ll eventually unify the designs of our Scarres too, in order to streamline the game’s art style.
Let us know if you like their brand new look!
Reworked Ability System & 40 New Abilities
The Ability System had a few problems of its own. The main offender was that it was hidden and we wouldn’t be surprised if some players didn’t even know that there were abilities in the game. The abilities have also cost precious Learning Points to unlock them and required you to leave your units stationed at cities for extended periods of time, which didn’t work well for the overall pacing of the game.
Now instead of teaching your units new skills at special training facilities, you unlock new Ability Tiers on certain level ups (levels 2, 5, 8, 12 and 16) and choose from 3 skills that are available on a given tier. Each unit still has its own Skill Tree, though they might now share a few abilities with other units.
Coupled with the changes to the Ability System itself, we’ve also added quite a lot of new skills into the game. The biggest beneficiaries of this were Valrenay Engineer, Scarre Warlord and Scarre Avenger. If you want to test out their new abilities without grinding for levels, try the Custom Battle mode!
New Dialogue System
We’ve finally got rid of the old ‘placeholder’ Dialogue Panel and implemented a proper Dialogue System into the game that comes with a brand new and shining Dialogue UI.
Most of the dialogue lines received some lifting and there are quite a few new dialogue options. For example, you can now pay the toll to the Bandits to avoid a fight with them, or trade an important piece of information to Shadows (if you have a high enough Intelligence stat) for a free passage.
However, the most important part in this is that the new Dialogue System opens up tons of options for us to design more immersive quests, interesting interactions with various NPCs and to actually implement the main storyline of Glorious Companions. And that is coming soon.
Warning: Old saves won't work after this update!
Content:
- Valrenay Visual Overhaul - all Valrenay units received new, more consistent textures.
- Reworked Ability System - now you learn new abilities in the Unit Panel, they don't cost Learning Points and Gold anymore.
- Implemented the Abilities Tab in the Unit Panel.
- Over 40 new abilities! - now each unit can have up to 5 abilities instead of 3.
- New Dialogue System coupled with new UI and new dialogue lines & options. It'll allow us to expand on the storyline and add more interesting quests and interactions in the future updates.
- Added an option to pay Bandits and Shadows to leave you be.
- Added the Settings menu in the Esc Panel on the World Map.
- Added a few new quests that can be obtained from NPC Lords.
- Added new NPC portraits for the Dialogue System.
Balance:
- Added ammo limits on ranged weapons.
- Balanced ranged weapons stats according to their ammo limits.
- Added a Grace Period after fighting with/running away from an enemy party.
- Adjusted quest rewards.
- Increased Gunner's Speed from 3 to 4.
- Rebalanced some melee weapons and shields stats.
- Made sure that the starting companion doesn't spawn with very negative traits.
Bug fixes and tweaks:
- Limited the view range on the world map, so you won't see all the npc groups anymore.
- Added camera auto-follow on the World Map.
- Added highlighting the obstacles and units that block your Line of Sight to selected target.
- Changed the World Map selection circle to align with terrain and adjust its size depending on the target.
- Made the Interactive Objects of the same type not spawn next to each other.
- Added mirroring of animations when a unit holds their weapon in their left hand.
- Changed the Default Battlecrews in Custom Battles.
- Fixed a bug with AI units attacking with ranged weapons from the Fog of War.
- Fixed a bug with Camping First Aid not healing properly.
- Fixed bugs with Power Drain and Furious Charge.
- Fixed some bugs with wrong numbers displayed in the Attack tooltip.
- Fixed a bug with Spiders not using their special ability.
- Fixed a bug with wrong language displayed in the Settings.
- Fixed a bug with Audio settings.
- Fixed a bug with generating the same trait twice for a unit.
- Fixed a bug with animation on an AI unit that left the Fog of War and re-entered it.
Hello there, Companions!
Today we’re releasing Update 0.7 that introduces a few new features and a variety of important balance changes & bug fixes. We’re laying important foundations for the next update, which will finally bring the new World Map. Oh and by the way: you can grab the game cheaper now with the -33% Weeklong deal!
Let’s dive right into what the update brings into the game:
City UI Rework
The City UI is by far one of the oldest pieces of the interface that we’ve had in the game. Today we’re ready to roll out the new and improved version that features cleaner design & a couple of changes. Make sure to visit some of the Temples - the word is that the Monks of Navaroth have learned to Inspire everyone who’s ready to donate coin for their cause.
The new cities feature a couple of new artworks that better resembles the local architecture, and we’ll be adding more unique features and art in the coming months.
Flee from Battle
In an ideal world a brave commander should never retreat on the battlefield. But reality can be tricky and so can be certain skirmishes, especially when the good of one’s people is concerned. We’ve implemented a new feature which allows you to flee from any combat scenario, provided you can get to the edges of the map. Note that it’s not exactly a Get Out of Jail Free card that you can keep using at all times - you’ll still suffer losses, but the upside is that you won’t die.
New Graphics Settings
Even though Glorious Companions is not that performance intensive of a game, we do want to provide an experience that the vast majority of people can run smoothly. We’ve added a bunch of sliders that control the density of in-game vegetation (that is: trees, grass and other non-gameplay elements) that you can use to customize the game to your liking. We recommend lowering some of them to increase performance on lower-end machines.
Brazilian Portuguese localization
We're excited to announce that both the store page and the game got localized into Brazilian Portugese with the help from @ZKuerten! Let us know if you find any errors or lacking translations
Warning: Old saves won't work after this update!
Content:
- City Panel rework - overhauled UI and improved functionality.
- New feature: Flee From Battle.
- Implemented Sound Effects for the new abilities.
- Added settings for Vegetation (that can be used to improve the game's performance).
- Added a new functionality in the Temple - now you can Inspire your units with the monks' help.
- New Engineer's grenade models.
Balance:
- Made the Gravity Trap invisible for enemies.
- Increased the unit level limit.
- Lowered the healing costs in the Temple.
- Now units can't see past the Smoke Grenade's area of effect.
- Increased the amount of quests available in cities.
Bug fixes and tweaks:
- Fixed a bug that occured when swapping two-handed weapons between sets (reported by Zethrio).
- Fixed a bug with the armor stats not updating when switching armor parts (reported by Zethrio).
- Fixed a bug that occured when cancelling battlecrew changes.
- Fixed a bug with refreshing stats in Battlecrew Manager.
- Fixed a visual bug with Corpse Eater skill.
- Added tooltips for gadgets.
- Fixed a bug with Weasel ability.
- Fixed a bug with Counterattack ability.
- Fixed a bug that occured when you had too many status effects on one unit.
- Fixed a bug with fog of war not reappearing at the spot where a unit died.
- Fixed a lot of multiplayer bugs.
- Fixed a bug that allowed users to interact with units after a battle ended.
- Fixed a bug with the rotation tip staying on screen after a battle.
- Fixed an animation bug when stopping on the World Map.
- Fixed a bug with units taking damage from gadgets that were already destroyed.
- Fixed a bug that caused the game to freeze when some buffs were in play.
- Fixed a bug with Blade Fury ability.
- Fixed a bunch of issues connected to the Smoke Grenade skill.
- Fixed a bug that allowed enemies to see some of the abilities being used in the fog of war.
- Time Limited Statuses (such as wounds) are now displayed in the above-unit UI.
- Tweaked a few ability FXs.
Let us know your thoughts in the comments and remember to follow the game for more updates!
Hello there, Companions!
We’re back with some fresh news and development updates. We want to share with you some details on the slowly upcoming update. In this post we’ll focus on one particular part of it - the item rework.
The current item design stems from the design of the multiplayer mode - we wanted all the weapons to be equally viable and on equal footings with each other considering the differences in their costs, strengths and weaknesses. Obviously what works well for a multiplayer gameplay doesn’t always work quite as well in singleplayer.
The biggest problem here is that the current system doesn’t allow for good progression, which is crucial for gameplay to be enjoyable. As it stands now the player can get access to the “most powerful” items in basically no time. In most RPGs itemization is a really important and fun part of the game, just as we want it to be in Glorious Companions.
Let’s go over what changes we’re currently working on!
New Visuals
First off, we’re reworking all the item models to better fit the new art direction we’ve taken up, as you could already see with our new unit textures. A nice bonus that comes with that is that the item icons will finally resemble the actual items’ look.
Item Qualities
Items will gain a quality stat ranging from Broken to Masterwork, totalling up to 6 quality tiers. Qualities will impact the item’s stats and value, thus a Broken Dagger will be much weaker than a Masterwork Dagger. And so weaker enemies will mostly use cheaper items, while lord companions will sport expensive sets of equipment.
Vendors will sell items in the range of -1/+1 of the Common (default) quality, so to get your hands on better gear you’ll have to fight more dangerous opponents. Later on we plan to add special locations on the World Map that will allow you to upgrade your item’s quality by 1 tier.
Special Effects
The most unique items will possess special effects that will further increase their power. After defeating the Swamp Dungeon you might find a couple of items with the “of Poison” suffix in your loot. There’ll be a variety of different effects, with the way they work depending on the type of the item. So a shield will trigger its effect when the unit successfully blocks an attack, while the armor will trigger by getting hit.
New Items
Not only are we changing how the item system works, we’re also adding a bunch of completely new items and item types to spice things up.
New weapons
Some categories of weapons didn’t offer as many choices as, let’s say the blades family. To remedy this, we’re adding a bunch of new axes, blunts and polearms. We’re also adding new firearms and a new bow. There’s also a completely new weapon type that will make its way into the game - the crossbows.
New offhands (left hand slot)
So far we’ve only had the shields to accompany single-handed weapons and we want to add some cool new choices for non-tank units.
Roth Spheres and Wands will be a great pick for any unit focused more on their active abilities than conventional fighting. They’ll increase Magic Defense, the Mind attribute or the Resource pool of their wielder.
Then we have the Ammo Bags which will help those constantly running out of javelins or throwing knives. Of course as the Ammo Bags are slotted under the offhand slot, they will be only available for one-handed ranged weapons (meaning all the Throwing Weapons).
Offhand Knives will be a perfect choice for offensive fighters wielding single-handed melee weapons. They can increase either the chance for a critical attack, the raw damage or even the wielder’s Parry stat.
And to finish it up we have some miscellaneous items that will be a wise pick up when wandering into dungeons, as they increase the lowered range of sight in those dark battle locations.
Let us know your thoughts in the comments and remember to follow the game for more updates!
