KickStarter The Iron Oath - turn-based strategy RPG with awesome pixel art

[cyborgboy95]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/699330/view/3203760288631750021

Fire and Ice Update Details
Hello mercenaries!

It's been just over a month since our release! Now that we've gotten the majority of bugfixes and QoL changes out of the way, we're currently working on our first major update called Fire and Ice, which will be available in June. We'll have an exact date for you as we get a little closer, but for now we wanted to share some extra details on what will be included in that update (and some more details beyond that).

New Class: Icebinder

Our 7th class, the Icebinder, is a frost mage that specializes in crowd control. He has a wide range of abilities that allow him to summon ice pillars, freeze enemies, and support his allies.

• Arctic Armor: Apply a Damage Shield on an ally for 2 Rounds which also grants Frost Resistance and Immunity to Freeze.
  
• Cold Feet: Place an ice trap on a vacant cell. Targets that step on it take damage and are Rooted in place for 1 Round. If the condition is not cleansed, they will become Frozen on their next turn for 2 Rounds.
  
• Frostburst: Target an ice wall or frozen unit and channel for 5 turns, shattering the ice and damaging all adjacent targets.
  
• Frozen Tomb: Target self, ally or enemy and Freeze them for 2 Rounds, cleansing negative conditions. Targets are Immune to damage, but the ice can be destroyed.
  
• Ice Wall: Summon a destructible wall of ice on any cell that partially blocks line of sight. If the cell is occupied, the target is pushed away. Lasts until destroyed.
  
• Impaling Ice: Target up to 2 cells within range and damage the occupants, Slowing them for 1 Round, and applying Ice Terrain.

We'll be adding at least three more classes during Early Access that will expand the roster to 10. The ones currently planned are the Balladeer (healer), Executioner (tank), and Mystic (ranged support).

Improvements to the Scourge
The Scourge and the dragon's arrival currently looks cool, but we want it to have more consequences and a larger impact on the world (and the player). In the Fire and Ice update, the dragon will attack a single city during the Scourge, spawning numerous void breaches in the county (as points of interest on the overworld). With the breaches active, the city will only have a short time before a demonic horde descends upon it - threatening to destroy it completely. Without spoiling too much, you can choose to lend a hand in various ways to potentially influence the outcome, or ignore the matter completely and leave the city to its fate.

In addition to the above, we'll have new quests and events related to the Scourge, along with new visuals for cities that have been attacked by the dragon.

Enchanting Gear
Repairing gear was originally something we planned to introduce in our Fall Update (with the additions of Named and Legendary gear). But due to popular demand, we moved it up in our timetable. Enchanting is another feature related to that which we've decided to move up and include in our Spring Update, in an effort to provide more rewarding loot in dungeons (and progression for your characters).

With the update, you will be able to find magical scrolls within dungeons, which can then be applied to your gear to enchant it with various beneficial effects. Higher tier gear will have more slots for enchantments, allowing you to come up with unique combinations that best suit each of your characters.

Looking Ahead
Our second major update, A Matter of Time, will be primarily focused on dungeons: adding new Time Modifiers and new Incenses that will give you more options when camping to help counteract the negative effects of time. Along with this, we'll be making improvements to dungeon exploration by adding new event types, and more events in general that will make dungeon crawls more interesting, varied, and rewarding.

Beyond that, we will be adding the final two tiers of the ability upgrade trees (and reworking a few of them in the process). Abilities themselves will be getting a balance pass to raise up some of the weaker and underutilized ones, giving you more viable choices when building your characters.

Suggestions and Feature Requests
If there's anything you'd like to see in the game, you can suggest it on our FeatureBase page found here: https://theironoath.featurebase.app

We'll be prioritizing suggestions based on upvotes, so be sure to have a look through the list and vote on a few things you'd like to see!

----

We'll likely be pushing one more patch before the Fire and Ice update to fix some smaller issues, but beyond that we'll be focused on the update itself for the next few weeks.

Thanks for reading, and for your continued support - it means a lot to us! If you haven't yet, be sure to leave a Steam review, too!

-Curious Panda Games

 

[Volourn]

Wheres the awesome pixel art???

 

[rojay]

Looks like I didn't really compare the 3 games.
In spite of the interesting skills from Iron Oath, BB simplicity, perks and weapon related attack moves makes for better combat.
Powerful skills with charges is a decline in my book, I'd have preferred less powerful ones but with infinite uses, just like in BB.

When you talk about "infinite" uses, what do you mean? Because most perks and weapon-related attack moves are limited at least by fatigue in BB, right? In Iron Oath, does the "cooldown" thing limit those attacks moreso than in BB?

Or do you mean that the way the "cost" is attributed in BB means you can conserve fatigue to use those "special" attacks three times in a row if you want, whereas in Iron Oath there's a hard "cool down" cost that imposes the limitation on use more arbitrarily?

 

[Galdred]

Looks like I didn't really compare the 3 games.
In spite of the interesting skills from Iron Oath, BB simplicity, perks and weapon related attack moves makes for better combat.
Powerful skills with charges is a decline in my book, I'd have preferred less powerful ones but with infinite uses, just like in BB.

When you talk about "infinite" uses, what do you mean? Because most perks and weapon-related attack moves are limited at least by fatigue in BB, right? In Iron Oath, does the "cooldown" thing limit those attacks moreso than in BB?

Or do you mean that the way the "cost" is attributed in BB means you can conserve fatigue to use those "special" attacks three times in a row if you want, whereas in Iron Oath there's a hard "cool down" cost that imposes the limitation on use more arbitrarily?

In Iron Oath, many abilities have a limited number of "charges" that don't replenish over the course of a "dungeon" or whatever you call their sequence of events/combats (quest?).

 

[Darth Canoli]

When you talk about "infinite" uses, what do you mean? Because most perks and weapon-related attack moves are limited at least by fatigue in BB, right? In Iron Oath, does the "cooldown" thing limit those attacks moreso than in BB?

Or do you mean that the way the "cost" is attributed in BB means you can conserve fatigue to use those "special" attacks three times in a row if you want, whereas in Iron Oath there's a hard "cool down" cost that imposes the limitation on use more arbitrarily?

In Iron Oath, many abilities have a limited number of "charges" that don't replenish over the course of a "dungeon" or whatever you call their sequence of events/combats (quest?).

This, you can restore some charges through camping (so far, it's between 0 and 1 camping spot per dungeon/quest) but not fully, you have several option while camping restoring some of this or that.

I'd rather have some stamina/mana pool management and get the liberty to use the skills I want.
It's not too bad so far but it's probably going to get worse later.

Also, one thing I didn't mention, seems like every mission has you getting in a dungeon, this mechanism is going to get old very fast.

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

Wheres the demo?

 

[cyborgboy95]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/699330/view/3359137488064881597

Fire and Ice Timeframe + Roadmap Update​

Hey everyone!

As we're nearing the end of the month, we wanted to give you an update on when you can expect the
Fire and Ice
update to drop. Our original plan was to release it during the last week of June, but with the Summer Sale now taking place, we've decided to wait until the event ends to officially release it. You won't have to wait that long to try it out though, as we'll be moving it to the Public Test Branch in early July. In the meantime, we're doing a bit more testing and also adding the ability to flee from fights in dungeons and in the overworld.

We've also taken some time to rework our roadmap based on community feedback and what we felt needed to be addressed.

Following
Fire and Ice
, our next two major updates will be focused on improving combat, character leveling, and dungeon crawls. On the combat side of things, we'll be rebalancing some enemy stats, adding new enemy variants, and making support/utility abilities a more attractive and useful option. Our overall goal will be making enemies feel more unique, requiring you to use different strategies and tactics to deal with them.

Character leveling is another area that has been commonly brought up by the community. We'll be making changes to provide greater freedom when leveling your characters, resulting in more diverse builds. Some character traits will also be getting a balance pass so they have a greater impact on a character's strengths and weaknesses, making them a more important consideration when leveling up.

As always, we thank you for your support and feedback! We hope you're all as excited as we are about getting these changes into the game over the next few months!

-Curious Panda Games

 

[cyborgboy95]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/699330/view/3385037625318977255

Fire and Ice is now live: New Class, Enchantments, and Scourge Events
Hello mercenaries!

Our first major update, Fire and Ice, is now available! This update features a new player class (the Icebinder), a gear enchantment system, and a Scourge crisis mechanic that adds new quests and special events to the game. We're excited for you all to get your hands on the new class, and we hope you enjoy what we've been working on!

Fire and Ice (0.5.206)

New additions

• Icebinder Class: The Icebinder can now be recruited! Specializing in crowd control, the Icebinder has a wide range of abilities that allow him to summon ice pillars, freeze enemies, and support his allies. Given his affinity for the cold, he has a higher chance of showing up at inns in the Northern Hold.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Scourge Crisis Event: We've added a new crisis event that occurs in the wake of the dragon's attack, introducing consequences and opportunities for the player.
  
  
  
  
  
  The dragon's arrival tears the fabric between the mortal realm and the Void, opening up Void Breaches all over the targeted county. Pouring from the breaches, a horde of demons gather to march on the local city, placing it and its citizens in jeopardy. Will you help in their time of need? Or will you leave them to their fate?
  
  
• New Quests and Overworld Encounters: In relation to the above event, we've added new quests and overworld encounters that can only occur during the Scourge.
• Closing Void Breaches: Void Breaches are now physically present on the combat field, supplying enemy reinforcements until they are closed. In order to close a breach, players must move next to it and interact with it (by left clicking).
• Enchantments: You can now obtain magical scrolls to enchant your gear with various stats and effects. There are currently 80 enchantments in total, divided across five rarities. The scrolls are consumed on use and the effects are permanently applied to gear, unless overwritten by another enchant. For now, they are mainly obtained by defeating bosses. In the 'Tales by the Fire' update later this year, there will be more varied ways to acquire them.
• Fleeing: If you find yourself in a dire situation, you can now flee from combat (so long as the mission or event allows). If you flee from combat within a dungeon, the dungeon will be aborted and you'll return to the overworld.

Changes

• Applying the Slow debuff on a target will also delay their upcoming turn until the end of the current round (if they have not yet acted)
• Enemies can now attack destructible terrain when necessary

Fixes

• Fixed an issue where the Icebinder was rarely showing up at inns to be recruited
• Using 'Wait' will no longer incorrectly reduce a buff's duration by 1 - this was especially noticeable when using the Pugilist's Battle Instinct ability
• Possible fix to sometimes getting quests located in Dragate (this fix won't apply to existing saves)
• Fixed a bug that allowed Houses in Dragate to go to war (this fix won't apply to existing saves)
• Clicking the X on portraits in the party select screen now removes them from the party properly (the hitbox was previously misaligned)
• Clicking a Void Breach too fast in combat would cause it to close immediately, leading to some potential visual bugs
• Fixed a soft lock that would occur in certain situations when closing a Void Breach
• Fixed an issue where a softlock could sometimes occur at the end of combat
• Fixed an issue where a character's Health value was sometimes incorrect when viewed in the overworld
• Fixed various issues where attacking destructible obstacles could lead to soft locks
• Fixed a bug where certain gear stats were showing as being better than what was currently equipped (when they were not)
• Fixed an issue where the Market would sometimes be empty in Andilon during the prologue
• Fixed an issue where normal quests were still appearing in the city attacked by the Dragon (it will now only spawn quests related to the event)
• Much more!

Notes

• With the changes to the Scourge, it's possible that you may encounter an issue if your current save has an active Scourge. You may notice some oddities, but it should resolve itself.

-----
Big thanks to everyone who helped us bugtest on the Public Test Branch this past week! This update made a lot of changes to the game, so there's undoubtedly some bugs yet undiscovered. If you see any, please report them from the escape menu in game and we'll do our best to get it fixed right away.

What's next?

Aside from bugfixes, we'll now be turning our full attention to our next major update: Friends and Foes. This update will feature a significant rework to the way leveling and attributes work, as we understand that the current system is a bit limited in terms of player choice and creativity. We'll also be implementing the remainder of the ability upgrade trees, making balance changes to existing upgrades, and tweaking a few base abilities to be more useful.

On the combat side of things, we have a number of mechanical changes in store to improve the feel and tactical depth of combat. From your feedback, we know that combat can sometimes be repetitive due to the limited enemy pool. To address this, we'll be adding a number of new enemy variants and readjusting their stats to make them more distinct from one another, providing more varied challenges for the player to adapt to and overcome.

We're really excited for these changes, and we hope you are too! We've both been itching to work on them for a few months. As of now, we don't have an official estimate on when you can expect the update, but we'll let you know when we have a better idea. We're still hoping to get it out before Summer ends, but with that date creeping up, early Fall may be more realistic.

Thanks for reading, and for your continued support and feedback! If you haven't yet, we'd really appreciate you leaving a review on Steam, and we also welcome you to join our Discord[discord.gg] community!

-Curious Panda Games

 

[cyborgboy95]

Autumn Sale & Update Preview
Hey everyone! It's been a bit since our last update, so we wanted to give you a preview of what's coming to The Iron Oath in our next major update titled Friends and Foes. We can't give an exact date just yet, but you can expect to see it soon as we're just entering the polish and testing phase. We're also happy to announce that The Iron Oath is currently 10% off during the Steam Autumn Sale from November 22 - 29! Now let's dive in to the upcoming changes:

New Ability Upgrades

With the Friends and Foes update, all ability upgrades will be unlocked, giving you full freedom to customize each of your characters with their most powerful upgrades. We've also gone through each ability, making changes to their base functions and/or tweaking their upgrade trees (more unique effects, fewer +Charge upgrades).

Attributes and Leveling Overhaul

We've reworked our attribute system, scrapping the concept of 'Primary Attributes' such as Physique and Finesse. The attributes available are now: Health, Morale, Power, Mending, Defense, Evasion, Accuracy, Critical Chance, Speed, Movement.

Most of these you'll be familiar with. The biggest change here is that we've split up Power into two attributes. Power will now determine your damage output, while Mending determines your healing (and shielding) output. With both damage and healing previously being handled by one stat, it meant your characters could excel in both areas without compromise, which from a balance perspective wasn't ideal!

Leveling up has also been redone. There wasn't a whole lot of room for progression with the previous system, and the points you did earn didn't move the needle much on any one stat (aside from maybe Health!). Going forward, you'll be granted a handful of points (varying by level) to spend toward ranking up an attribute. By default it costs 6 points to rank up and increase a stat, but characters can also excel in some stats (determined upon their creation), making it only cost 5 points to rank it up. Overall, ranking up an attribute will have a much larger impact on your character then it currently does, and the relative strength of a high level character will be much more noticeable compared to a fresh recruit.

We've also changed up the leveling table, getting rid of the soft cap at level 10 where you stopped gaining attribute points. The soft cap is now 20, with the hard cap being 40. After level 20, you will still earn attribute points, just not as much as the previous levels. The XP requirements for levels have also been adjusted with these changes in mind.

The way attributes are assigned to a character upon their creation has been reworked. Each attribute now has a min and max value it can be assigned, depending on the class. For example, a Pyrolancer's starting Health can vary between 375-450, while a Huntress' defaults between 275-350. With this change, along with characters excelling in certain stats, we're hoping each character will feel more unique, opening up more build possibilities for you to explore.

Finally, we've removed the stat modifiers that were tied to a character's age. While we liked the idea of your characters having a "peak", in practice it was a little confusing and it also worked against the feeling of progression once they got to an older age.

Enemy Diversity

Enemy diversity is something we've wanted to improve, and we've done a few things to help with it. Firstly, we've added 30 new enemy variants to the game, pushing the total enemy count to around 80. Most existing enemies have also had some of their abilities and passives modified or reworked, and enemies across the board have had their stats rebalanced to make them less uniform and present different challenges for you to plan around.

In addition, we've also added over 50 traits that can be assigned to enemy Elites and Bosses, adding another tactical wrinkle for you to keep in mind when encountering these foes.

-a few of the new Outlaw variants: Maurader, Deadeye, and Trapper

Combat Mechanics

Our goal with this update is to introduce more variety to combat. Not only in just the enemies you face, but also in terms of how you approach each fight. Dealing damage is obviously important, but we don't want every fight to just be a DPS race where any turn spent not doing damage just puts you further behind. Conditions and debuffs will play a much bigger role going forward as their effects and durations have been increased (for the most part). Choosing who to bring along and what abilities to equip will be a more important factor in your success!

One of the biggest changes we're making to combat is increasing the default party size from 4 to 5. This has been frequently requested and should allow for a bit more creativity in selecting your party's composition based on what enemy you're fighting. In the future, we do plan to have some unique fights where you can field a much larger party, but for now the limit will be 5.

Deployment zones is another aspect of combat that has been changed. Currently every fight starts out as a clump on the left, vs a clump on the right. While this is fine sometimes, it can also get a bit repetitive. Enemies will now spawn in many different configurations, and not always lumped together. Having to occasionally deal with a quick flanking enemy or two while their main force starts further back should add some much needed variation to the way you approach the start of combat. Your party's deployment area will also be different in every fight. Currently there is a bit too much freedom in where you can choose to spawn, and you can basically do the same thing every time (such as spawning everyone far away from the enemy and making them waste a turn by coming toward you). Going forward, you'll have some tougher decisions to make during the deployment phase, and you'll have to make the best of the positions offered to you!

There are a handful of other combat mechanics that we've tweaked or introduced. Here's a quick rundown on some of these changes:

• Line of Sight tweaks: There were a few scenarios where enemies could shoot through their units and hit your own without penalty. These instances felt a little cheap, so we've made some adjustments to how we handle shooting through other units. Additionally, units that are Guarding now count as a full LoS blocker, so your tank can now protect characters behind them from being targeted by ranged enemies.
• Terrain Overrides: There were times where multiple terrain effects could occupy the same cell, making it cluttered and confusing to decipher. Terrain being applied in a cell (such as Wet Terrain from Rainfall) will now clear and override any existing temporary terrain (such as Corruption Terrain)
• New Conditions: We've introduced two new common conditions to help you tackle certain foes. The first being 'Sunder Armor' which permanently reduces a target's Defense for the rest of the fight, and the second being 'Grievous Wounds' which prevents a target from being Healed, Shielded, or Buffed for the duration.
• Ranged Unit Nerf: Ranged units currently have it too easy, and getting on top of them with a melee character has no effect on them. Going forward, ranged units will suffer an Attack of Opportunity from adjacent enemies if they try to attack any other units. Additionally, ranged units will deal 50% less damage to adjacent enemies (think of it as them doing a rushed attack). It will be important to keep your ranged characters at an optimal distance and protect them from getting run up on by melee foes!

UI Improvements

Finally, we've made some major changes to our UI and have overhauled many screens to be more user friendly (and just better looking!) - you won't have to navigate through clunky submenus and tabs anymore! The roster screen now contains all information on a single screen, and other screens (such as Company Upgrades and Reputation) have been given their own windows as well that can be accessed by the menu in the bottom left of the UI.

-a bit more polish to do on this screen, but it's mostly done!

We've also added a Codex/Bestiary that can be accessed at any time to view information on an any single enemy. If you ever forget what their abilities or passives do, you can easily bring the window up (so long as it's an enemy you've previously encountered!).

-a mock of what the codex will look like

-----

We hope you're as excited about all these changes as we are, and we're looking forward to hearing your feedback once you get your hands on the update!

-Curious Panda Games

 

[Major_Blackhart]

This is good news

 

[Darth Canoli]

Interesting, now, the only thing left to improve or to remove is their inane dungeon design.

 

[GrainWetski]

Any new pronouns yet? I've been waiting since release.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Any new pronouns yet? I've been waiting since release.

"release"?

Seriously, I will buy it and give it a try once it's out of EA, pronouns or no.

 

[copebot]

I played through the first dungeon of the prologue the other day and mostly enjoyed the combat. I'm not sure that I like the class system so far, because it makes it seem like my party is nothing but weird-guy custom character classes from obscure supplements. The special abilities seem to range from OP to basically useless. Darkest Dungeon, I guess, also has nothing but "weird" classes, but most of those also fit with the setting. DD did a good job selling its unique character classes with the barks, the art, and the narration without also making it feel like you were playing with someone else's characters. I don't know what the game gains by making the fire mage a "pyrolancer."

I get that there is pressure to make the game stand out visually, but I would have preferred the customization that you get from something like Battle Brothers, in which even your beginning bros can be customized significantly with trash gear. It makes me feel like my party has been customized, but by someone else. I'm not really sure that Battle Brothers and Darkest Dungeon needed to have a baby together.

 

[Reinhardt]

customize them with pronouns

 

[Infinitron]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/699330/view/3632751459973902583

Updated Roadmap, 'Friends and Foes' Status Update
Hey everyone,

Firstly, we'd like to apologize for the lack of official communication during the last month. We were hoping to release
Friends and Foes
in January, but unfortunately this update has continued to take longer than planned. While it is content complete, there is a lot of testing, tweaking, and bug fixing still to be done to ensure that it lives up to our standard. The build will be available on the public test server 2~ weeks from now, but we expect that it's going to need to stay there for a few more weeks so we can gather your feedback on balance, and fix any bugs that you may find. Because of this, we're officially delaying the update until March.

We know many of you have been anticipating the update and will be frustrated by the news. We are sorry for the delays, but we do believe it will be worth the wait in the end. In hindsight, this update could have been broken up into 2 or 3 smaller ones, and we'll take this as a learning experience and apply it to future updates.

On that note, we've updated our Early Access Roadmap to reflect the changes to
Friends and Foes
, and the updates that will follow it.

Thanks for your support and understanding.

-Curious Panda Games

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[Infinitron]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/699330/view/3692429228036759026

Major Update: Friends and Foes is out now!
Hello mercenaries!

The
Friends and Foes
update is now live! We've received a lot of valuable feedback and bug reports during the last few weeks, and we want to give a big thanks to everyone who helped us playtest the update on the test branch. We also appreciate everyone being patient and supportive as we worked to get this update complete over the last several months. It was a big undertaking for just the two of us, and the amount of testing and tuning needed was comparable to when we were preparing to launch the game last year.

While there is still a bit of refinement to be done, we're happy with how it turned out, and we feel all the changes accomplished what we set out do: giving players a better sense of progression and choice with their characters, and making combat more engaging and less repetitive with new enemies and mechanics.

Before diving into all the changes, we want to address the feedback we've received on the update's difficulty. Players will be happy to hear that we've raised up Accuracy to be more in line with how it was prior to this update. While we do want players to have to work a bit make their Basic Attacks land (with Flanks, Staggers, Stuns), we realize that missing half the time by default isn't fun either.

With regards to overall difficulty, Battle-Hardened is now a bit easier than it was when the update first went onto the test branch. It may still be a bit too difficult right now for new players (or players who haven't played in a while), but we don't want to make any drastic changes right now since it would affect the other difficulty settings. For now, we've added the ability to switch your difficulty setting at any time in the pause menu, and we'll also be adding some new difficulty settings (and tuning existing ones as needed) in a future update.

Finally, we want to say a quick word on the state of dungeon exploration. Due to all the changes, dungeons are currently a bit barren right now. Our goal for the next major update is improving the whole dungeon experience by tweaking some mechanics, adding more event types, and also rewarding the player with better loot.

With all that out of the way, let's move onto the changes made with the release of
Friends and Foes


Friends and Foes: Summary of Changes

• Attributes Overhaul
  : Attributes have been reworked, and a new 'Mending' attribute has been added that increases the potency of Heals and Damage Shields (Power is now solely for abilities that deal damage).
  
  
  
  
• Levelling Overhaul
  : On level up, the Attribute Points you gain can be spent towards ranking up attributes of your choosing. Overall, the increases are much more significant than before, and characters have a higher potential for growth.
• Level Cap
  : The level caps have been adjusted. From levels 1-20 you will gain both Attribute and Ability Points on level up. Level 20 is the new softcap, and from 21-40 you will only gain Attribute Points (3 per level).
• Class Abilities
  : We've adjusted the base function of a few abilities to make them a more attractive option.
• Full Ability Trees
  : We've made adjustments to almost every ability tree, and the 3rd and 4th tier of ability upgrades are now fully implemented (totaling 252 new choices). They can be upgraded at level 5 and level 10 respectively.
  
  
  
  
• Increased Party Size
  : The maximum number of characters in a party has been increased from 4 to 5.
  
  
  
  
• New and Modified Conditions
  : We've added some new combat conditions and have tweaked a few existing ones. Conditions now last longer and play a much larger role in combat now, especially when dealing with certain enemies.
  
  
  
  
• Reworked Enemies:
  We've reworked a lot of existing enemies, changing their stats, abilities, and passives. Overall, enemies are now more specialized in what they do, and are more statistically and mechanically different from one another.
• New Enemies
  : We've added 30 new enemy variants into the game for more variation from fight to fight.
  
  
  
  
• Enemy Traits
  : Elites and Bosses now spawn with Traits (from a pool of 50) that add an extra strategic consideration when fighting them, ranging from statistical increases to unique combat mechanics. You can view their traits by mousing over their portrait or sprite.
• Combat Deployment
  : The deployment zones available for both sides are now more varied (it's no longer always left vs right!).
  
  
  
  
• Line of Sight and Ranged Unit Mechanics
  : We've made some adjustments to Line of Sight, making ranged units less effective in certain situations when shooting through other units to hit their target. Ranged units will no longer be able to target and attack other targets when they have an adjacent enemy. They must either move, or attack the adjacent enemy (and deal 50% damage)
• New UI Screens
  : The Manage Roster and Storage screens have been completely redesigned. Other screens now have their own dedicated windows (they will also be receiving a redesign in the future to match the style of the new roster screen).
  
  
  
  
• Codex:
  We've added a Codex screen that contains information on all enemies, enemy traits, and combat conditions. To view the codex entry for an enemy, simply right click their portrait.
  
  
  
  
• Combat Frequency
  : Due to increased party size and adjustments to enemy stats, fights now take a little longer on average. To compensate for this, we've lowered the number of fights in dungeons to 2, 3 and 4 for Short, Medium and Long dungeons respectively. Don't be afraid to be a bit more liberal with your ability charges!

Patch Notes for Friends and Foes (0.6.008)
Gameplay Changes and Additions

• You can now change your difficulty setting at any time (except in combat). We will be adding more difficulty settings (and tweaking existing ones) with our next major update. With the new mechanics at play, we recommend starting on Adventurer, and then bumping it up to Battle-Hardened if you're finding it too easy.
• Removed the old primary attributes (such as Toughness, Finesse, etc). Players now invest directly into combat stats such as Health, Power, Evasion
• Starred attributes are now randomly assigned to characters to encourage different builds, instead of being fixed and dictated by their class
• Power now only affects abilities that deal damage
• Added a new Mending stat that handles the scaling of Healing and Shielding effects
• Accuracy of Level 1 characters is now closer in range to where it previously was on the main branch (for those that have been playing on the latest test branch, it'll be 12~ higher than it was, 22~ if you only played the first version on test)
• Reworked the XP table for leveling up, particularly beyond level 10 (late game should be a bit less grindy now)
• Increased the level cap to 40 (with a soft cap of 20). From levels 1-20, characters earn both Attribute and Ability points. After level 20, they will only receive a reduced number of Attribute points
• Reworked the number of Ability and Attribute points given at each level
• The 3rd and 4th tier of ability upgrades (totaling 252 choices) are now fully implemented. A character will unlock them at levels 5 and 10 respectively
• The majority of character traits have been adjusted so they're more impactful, and two new traits have been added that affect Mending
• Adjusted the values of many enchantment scrolls to be more significant (particularly Health, Power, Damage Shield, and a few others)
• Added a 'Scroll of Mending' Enchantment, granting +5/6/7/8/10 Mending depending on the scroll's rarity
• All Gear has been slightly adjusted to better synergize with the new attribute system
• All existing enemies have had their stats reworked and abilities adjusted. Enemies now have more of a specialized purpose.
• Over 30 new enemy variants (many with new abilities) have been added to the game
• Elite enemies now also gain +14 Defense and +50 Mending (in addition to their Health and Power being increased like always)
• Increased starting coin across all difficulty levels (due to the party size increase)
• On Adventurer difficulty: player Accuracy has been increased by 10, enemy Evasion has been reduced by 10, and Bosses have fewer combat traits
• Adjusted starting XP when skipping the tutorial (so players don't need to replay the tutorial to start on an equal footing)
• While in the prologue, the Inn now guarantees enough recruits to reach a party of 5 (and a Guardian is guaranteed to be among them)
• Euric no longer takes a cut of your profits (and now works for free out of the kindness of his heart!)
• Euric no longer has the Reckless trait (since it conflicted with his Fortitude trait)
• Adjusted mercenary salary costs to be significantly cheaper, capping out around 300~ coin per year (it was too difficult to get ahead previously. This is more of a first pass, and we'll be revisiting salary costs again in the future)
• Overworld Encounters have been made more difficult across the board to compensate for the fact that you don't need to save your ability charges for future fights (they were previously far too easy)
• The difficulty of random Overworld Encounters is now more varied. If you are capable of beating '5 Skull' encounters, you will occasionally still come across 3 and 4 Skull encounters

Combat Changes and Additions

• Max party size is now 5!
• The combat deployment zones available to both sides are now more varied
• Added over 50 enemy traits that can be assigned to Bosses and Elites, giving them increased stats and unique mechanics that will need to be considered as you're fighting them. Bosses will have 2-5 traits depending on the encounter difficulty, while Elites will always have 2.
• Tweaked the Resistances and Immunities of most enemies.
• Enemies now have Vulnerabilities to certain damage types (ie. Holy is strong vs Demons). Attacks against vulnerable enemies will do 25% more damage
• Units can no longer target other enemies with ranged attacks when they have an enemy next to them. They must either move away (and incur an Attack of Opportunity), or attack the adjacent target and deal 50% less damage. This was done to give players more means of countering powerful ranged units (by jumping on top of them with a speedy melee unit)
• Ranged units can no longer shoot through their allies from a distance to deal full damage to a target that is directly behind the ally. They will now do 50% less damage (due to partial Line of Sight) when attempting such a shot
• When using Guard, that unit counts as a full Line of Sight blocker to enemies (meaning you can place a squishier character directly behind them, and prevent them from being targeted at all under the right circumstances)
• The duration of most conditions have been increased, giving them a more important role in combat
• Most abilities that cleanse conditions have been made more effective by also providing immunity to all conditions for 3 Rounds (which allows you to also use them proactively)
• The Guardian's 'Radiance' passive - which cleanses all adjacent allies - now requires 4 stacks in order to trigger instead of 3 (it was very powerful and too easy to trigger, but it also makes her damage abilities that consume Radiance stacks more potent now)
• Added two new combat conditions: Sunder Armor (breaks target's Defense) and Grievous Wounds (prevents targets from being buffed, healed, or shielded)
• Bleed and Burn conditions now last until cleansed
• Updated Poison to deal damage to the target equal to 10% of their current Health, lasting until cleansed (we had been meaning to change it for a while as it was previously too similar to Decay)
• Stunned characters have their Defense halved (and we updated the tooltip to mention that Basic Attacks against Stunned targets cannot miss, which was always the case, but not displayed anywhere)
• Added a new Miasma terrain effect that inflicts Poison on the occupant
• Tweaked the Corruption Terrain that is spawned by Demons and Corrupted units. Enemy units standing on it will be healed for 10% of their max health once per round
• Increased the effects of standing in Tall Grass to be more impactful. Units now gain 15 Evasion, but lose 15 Accuracy.
• Reworked how enemy compositions are created by applying a "strength value" to each unit. Combat difficulty should now be much more consistent as a result, and we can easily tweak the values as needed going forward if an enemy is too strong or too weak relative to their value.
• Limited the number of enemies that can appear upfront in a fight. Any overflow will now spawn as reinforcements in later rounds (this will most often be seen in overworld fights, and on smaller tilesets such as the Fort)
• A number of changes to various class Abilities and Upgrades. Too upgrade changes to list, but below are the changes made to abilities themselves:
• (Guardian) Blinding Strike's damage has been significantly increased
• (Guardian) Safeguard's Damage Shield now lasts for 3 Rounds (up from 2)
• (Guardian) The Root from Judgment now lasts for 2 Rounds (up from 1)
• (Huntress) Rapid Fire's damage has been slightly reduced
• (Huntress) Restraining Order now Roots for 2 Rounds (up from 1)
• (Huntress) The buff and Mark from True Sight now lasts for 3 Rounds (up from 2)
• (Huntress) Increased the trigger range of Overwatch from 2 to 3 cells
• (Huntress) Volley's damage has been increased
• (Icebinder) Arctic Armor's Damage Shield now lasts for 3 Rounds (up from 2)
• (Icebinder) The Freeze effect from Cold Feet now lasts 1 Round instead of 2
• (Icebinder) Cold Feet's trap damage is slightly increased
• (Pugilist) Mind, Body, and Soul no longer heals by default, but it does provide condition immunity for 3 Rounds
• (Pugilist) Healing Trance now heals adjacent allies for 25% of the value to himself (instead of 50%, which was too powerful)
• (Pugilist) Battle Instinct's starting values have been reduced to +35% for Evasion, Defense and Power
• (Pyrolancer) Pyromania can now be active on more than one ally
• (Pyrolancer) Wildfire can now be used again without erasing a previous instance
• (Pyrolancer) Return to Cinder can now be used again without erasing a previous trap, and its damage has been slightly increased
• (Pyrolancer) Heatwave has had its damage slightly reduced
• (Stormcaller) Conduit now targets a specific cell instead of an enemy (so it can miss if the target moves). Any cell within range (empty or occupied) can be targeted. We felt the ability was a bit too easy and powerful before, but now it requires a bit of planning. To compensate for the change, its damage has been slightly increased.
• (Stormcaller) The range of Cyclone has been increased and any pushed targets are also Slowed for 2 Rounds
• (Stormcaller) Changed Wind Surge to now grant a singly ally +10 Speed, +2 Movement and +20 Evasion for 3 Rounds.
• (Valkyrie) Aegis now grants the Valkyrie a flat +20 Defense (previously +40%). The Buff and the Taunt now last 2 Rounds (up from 1)
• (Valkyrie) Guardian Angel now applies a Damage Shield to the targeted ally for 3 Rounds
• (Valkyrie) Take Flight's damage has been slightly reduced
• (Valkyrie) Champion's Order now lasts for 2 Rounds and has a Range of 2 (both up from 1)
• The 'Potency' upgrades for Damage, Healing, and Shielding abilities have been reduced (most have gone from +25%/+30% down to +15%/+20%). With the rest of the trees now available, the previous values resulted in you outscaling enemies too much in the late game (few enemies could withstand 1500 damage from an upgraded Rapid Fire!). While we want you to feel powerful late game, it shouldn't be easier than doing 1 Skull missions in the early game
• A number of changes and additions to enemy Passive Abilities:
• (Specters/Wraiths) As a drawback to their
  Apparition
  passive (teleporting and ignoring Attacks of Opportunity when moving), Specters can no longer move and attack on the same turn, and will now delay their attack until the end of the round
• (Necromancers and Undead)
  Decay
  no longer stacks on targets. Targets will have their Max Health lowered by 5% every round until cleansed
• (Demons) Enabled the Demon's
  Empower
  passive. Upon their death, they will buff the stats of one adjacent ally (with the highest Health). Be mindful of this when going to strike a killing blow!
• (Soldiers) Due to their training and discipline, House Soldiers excel when fighting together in formation. We've given them a
  Shieldwall
  passive that grants them a bonus to Defense and Evasion when they have two or more adjacent allies at their side
• (Nullbeasts) Nullbeasts gain a new
  Deadzone Shroud
  buff when occupying a cell with Deadzone Terrain, granting them increased Evasion and cleansing their conditions.
• (Hoarwulfs)
  Ice Tracks
  now spawns Ice Terrain on the cell they move to, instead of on every cell traversed.
• (Hoarwulfs) Added a new
  Crystalize
  passive to Hoarwulfs, increasing their Defense by 10 (max of +30) for every round they remain stationary. This can be dispelled by pushing them, burning them, or by using an ability that removes enemy buffs
• (Brightmanes) Added a new
  Piercing Light
  passive, allowing their attacks to completely ignore Defense
• A few passives are currently disabled, leaving a few enemy types without any. We'll be enabling them in a future update

UI/UX Changes and Additions

• Split up the old 'Company Management' window into separate screens (with their own hotkeys). The 'Manage Roster' screen has been completely overhauled and is much easier to use (the other screens such as Company Upgrades, Reputation will be getting a rework in the future to match the new style of the Roster screen)
• Added a stat comparison tooltip when hovering over equippable gear in the 'Manage Roster' screen
• Added a Codex that can be accessed at any time to give players information on the foes they are facing (accessed in combat by right clicking an enemy portrait)
• The default dialogue font is now larger (the smaller font remains as an option for those who prefer it). We will be slowly converting all other UI elements to this larger font.
• Tweaked existing Tutorials and added a few new ones to help new players gain a solid understanding of various game mechanics
• Added a tooltip when hovering the difficulty skulls of a contract or encounter that suggests a recommended party level
• Void Breaches in the overworld now display a recommended party level in the tooltip (we'll be adding this in the tooltip for other Points of Interest in the future as well)
• Added a tooltip on a character's XP bar, so you can see their progress to the next level
• Increased the number of slots in the turn order UI
• Added more unique status icons for some buffs/debuffs instead of using the generic ones all the time
• The number of rounds remaining for buffs and debuffs is now displayed on the status icons (and within the tooltip)
• A unit's stat tooltip now comes up in combat after hovering their sprite for 1 second (you can still instantly access it by pressing tab)
• Added Mending, Critical Chance and Accuracy to the stat tooltip (and a list of traits for Bosses and Elites)
• Added a new boss icon to the portraits of boss enemies
• Added instructions and a sound effect when using abilities that select 2 separate targets

Fixes

• Significantly sped up the "thinking" time for certain enemies on their turn (such as the Spectral Reaper)
• Potential fix for a crash that would rarely occur when a floor hazard expired
• Fixed a crash related to Frozen targets taking damage from certain sources
• Fixed a bug where all allied attacks would contribute to the Stormcaller's Static Charge stacks on an enemy (inflicted by his passive). All ally attacks still have a chance to trigger the Stun (based on stack count), but only the Stormcaller's attacks can increase the stacks now
• When using Wait, the duration of buffs and debuffs will no longer tick down until you actually take an action in the round
• Ability upgrades that refresh the duration and value of Damage Shields will now update correctly
• The Valkyrie's passive 'Vismyr's Protection' which provides a Damage Shield (base of 70) at the start of combat now works correctly
• Fixed a bug where other Damage Shields applied to the Valkyrie would instantly break when damage was taken
• Fixed a bug where Taunted units would just pass their turn
• Fixed a bug where Taunted units were not counting towards a Flank on their taunter
• Fixed a bug where the Icebinder's 'Impaling Ice' ability would cause the target to act twice at the end of the round
• Fixed a bug where you sometimes wouldn't get the promised coin during an event (like when making a deal with Bandits)
• Fixed a bug where Basic Attacks against Staggered units were not guaranteed to hit (now they are)
• Fixed a crash with falling rock hazards and significantly sped up the rate at which they fall
• Fixed various bugs where enemies would sometimes not act on their turn (still sometimes occurs, but the majority of instances should be resolved)
• Units should no longer get stuck in Ice Walls
• Fixed a bug that allowed the 'Potency' ability upgrades to persist after refunding that character's ability points (until the game was shut down)
• Fixed a bug where a character's Health in the overworld would be displayed as the amount that they had when they left a dungeon
• Possible fix for a rare softlock that could sometimes occur during the camping cutscene after the tutorial
• Fixed a bug where quests sometimes wouldn't appear in cities after completing the prologue
• Fixed an issue where the effects from Tall Grass sometimes weren't being removed even after the unit moved off of it
• Fixed a bug that was in the latest test branch where the Journal wasn't displaying any quest information
• Many more undocumented fixes! There are a few minor ones we're aware of, and they'll be getting addressed in a future patch

Notes

• Due to the changes, all your characters will have their Attribute and Ability points refunded when loading an old save. You'll need to reallocate them.
• Any enchantments applied to gear on old saves will be removed and you will be given scrolls in your Storage (if you're currently in a dungeon, you won't see them until you exit)
• We've left the F10 debug function enabled. If you experience a softlock in combat, hitting F10 will usually fix it (though please do still submit a bug report in game so we can get the log and fix the problem)

What's next?

We will be following up with patches as needed to fix a few more minor bugs (and any new ones that are found). Up next is our
Tales by the Fire
update which will be bringing many improvements to dungeon exploration (and dungeon loot) along with adding our 8th class: the
Balladeer
.

Thanks for reading and for your continued support and feedback. We hope you like all the changes! If you're enjoying the game, we'd really appreciate you leaving a review on Steam, and we'd also like to invite you to join our Discord community. Have a great weekend!

-Curious Panda Games

 

[The Wall]

. . .Female soldier, Fire NIgger, Female Bosses, Ice NIgger, Female Barbarians, Ninja Nigger, Feminist Mage, Druid Nigger. . .

I'd like my fantasy settings not to look like San Francisco in 2023. Game went WOKE and become SHIT the moment Jewtron touched it

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Currently 10% off on Steam.

So is this some woke garbage full of current day politics as alluded to above or does it have actual good world building? I want to escape from reality when I play games and prefer to not have identity politics slapped in my face.

 

[agris]

Currently 10% off on Steam.

So is this some woke garbage full of current day politics as alluded to above or does it have actual good world building? I want to escape from reality when I play games and prefer to not have identity politics slapped in my face.

I stopped following this closely for a while, as it seemed development had stalled out. I suspect - although I don’t know - that this is a much pared down version compared to the KS pitch.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.kickstarter.com/project...th-dark-turn-based-tactical-rpg/posts/3926619

Release Date Announcement & Expeditions Update​

Hello backers! We're thrilled to announce that The Iron Oath is leaving Early Access and will be releasing on November 2nd, 2023.

We're excited for returning players to check out all the changes and additions we've made over the last year and a half, and to welcome in new players who have been waiting for the game's full release. The 1.0 release brings a conclusion to the main campaign, but that doesn't mean we're done with the game. There are still more stories to tell in the world of Caelum, and we're looking forward to continuing the journey with you!

A big thanks to all of you for helping us reach this milestone - it wouldn't have been possible without your support and we hope you all enjoy the end result!

Expeditions Update​

Our final update of Early Access, called Expeditions is now live on the main branch! This update adds Named Gear that you can loot from bosses, and new content in the form of quests, overworld encounters, and company moments.

Patch Notes 0.8.008

New

• Added a number of new quests (6 brand new, plus some "old" ones we realized weren't showing up)
• Added new Company Moments (events where you converse with members of your company while traveling) and Overworld Encounters
• Added Named Gear, which is an enhanced version of regular gear that has 2 random stat boosts applied to it (higher tier gear will have larger bonuses), and also comes pre-loaded with randomized enchantments. Named Gear will have a chance to drop from bosses at 2 Skull+, with a 100% chance from 5 Skull bosses.
• Added a note during dialogue events to indicate when a character's personality trait has influenced them to say something
• Added experimental support for controllers (still lots of work to be done). This can be enabled in options.json by setting ControllerEnabled: "true" (The file is found in C:\Users\YOURNAME\AppData\LocalLow\Curious Panda Games\The Iron Oath)
• Added additional Steam Deck support (it's now marked as 'Playable' on Steam. There's only a few issues left and we'll continue working on this in the future to get it fully Verified)

Updates

• Codex now only shows entries for enemies that you have encountered (this isn't retroactive, so old saves will need to find enemies again to unlock their Codex entry).
• When unlocking a Codex Entry, a graphic will show at the bottom of the screen (either during Dungeon Exploration or in the Expedition Summary, depending on the situation)
• Bosses now drop more appropriate gear for the type of enemy defeated (eg. you can expect to find a Staff from a Deathlord, but they won't drop a Lute)
• Buffed the values of many Enchantments and also made them more likely to be found in loot chests
• Better pathfinding on the world map when traveling to and from dungeons
• Added more dungeon locations in every county
• Updated quests so the location of its associated dungeon is within the county you accepted it from (eg. If you accept a quest in a town, you can expect the dungeon to be relatively close by instead of on the other side of the region, unless the context of the quest dictates otherwise).
• Significantly increased default travel speed on the world map (just the visuals of it, the number of days passing remains the same)
• When 'City Events' change in a city, the available quest list will now update immediately so the quests are more relevant to the current situation
• Updated the description of the buff icon when the Valkyrie uses Champions Order with the 'Unimpeded' upgrade
• Added text to inform users on their turn when a character is Rooted (so they know why they can't move)
• Adjusted the percentages of disarming Traps (tools are now a bit more potent, though a Picklock being present remains the biggest bonus)
• When completing 'A Blacksmith's Request', he now can give any type of weapon instead of always giving a Polearm. Additionally, if you choose to sell him any spare iron you have, he will now inform you he can't pay full price but will increase your reputation with the city.
• Added some falloff for ranking up the Mending stat (now aligns with other percentage-based stats)
• Void Breach events now have a 100% chance to spawn in dungeons (on side paths) when there is a Void Breach 'city status' active in the area

Fixes

• Fixed an issue when cycling through characters in the company management screens so it moves linearly through the list
• Fixed various sound effect issues with breakable objects
• Tooltips on the overworld HUD now show when you hover the icon (previously only showed when hovering the text/number)
• Fixed a bug with the 'Camp Fortifications' upgrade where the Renown level requirements were incorrectly set
• Fixed a bug where the Outlaw Deadeye was ignoring all Defense of their target (instead of only when the target has under 20%)
• The Power Aura upgrade from the Pugilist's Battle Instinct now lasts for the same duration as the ability (It was only lasting 1 Round previously)
• Fixed an issue with the 'Swell' upgrade for the Balladeer's Anthem of Warding ability that could cause targeting issues
• Fixed an issue where some stats were not being calculated properly after ranking them up a lot
• Fixed an issue that could cause a soft lock in combat when drawing custom movement routes on certain tilesets
• Added a decimal place to the values of some attributes in the roster menu
• Fixed an issue where the Company History screen could not be closed with 'Esc'
• Camping no longer resets the Time Meter to 0 (we intended to remove this mechanic last update with the dungeon rework but it slipped through the cracks!)
• Other various minor bug fixes

-----

Last call for creative rewards​

Just a reminder that this is the last call to submit your creative rewards. For details and instructions, please refer to this earlier post. We've also sent everyone a message on Kickstarter that we have yet to hear from. Anything submitted beyond this week will have to wait until a post-launch update to be included in the game. Thank you!

-Curious Panda Games

 

[Atlet]

Currently 10% off on Steam.

So is this some woke garbage full of current day politics as alluded to above or does it have actual good world building? I want to escape from reality when I play games and prefer to not have identity politics slapped in my face.

I know codexers are really retarded in general, but what could be possibly woke in this game that is such a concern for you?

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Currently 10% off on Steam.

So is this some woke garbage full of current day politics as alluded to above or does it have actual good world building? I want to escape from reality when I play games and prefer to not have identity politics slapped in my face.

I know codexers are really retarded in general, but what could be possibly woke in this game that is such a concern for you?

I just read the earlier posts in this thread and then asked if it's true.

 

[Serus]

Currently 10% off on Steam.

So is this some woke garbage full of current day politics as alluded to above or does it have actual good world building? I want to escape from reality when I play games and prefer to not have identity politics slapped in my face.

I know codexers are really retarded in general, but what could be possibly woke in this game that is such a concern for you?

They aren't all retared. For example, there is one brilliant guy called Atleticano. I heard he is the only non-retaqrded person on this site. And not at all all edgy at the same time, and he even doesn't give retarded rating to everything he doesn't understand at all, imagine that!

As to your question. Did you, perhaps, in you wisdom, saw this small sign, like this: "?". It is called a question mark. It is in the post you quoted. As to the possibilities, in a non-abstract game like this one - almost anything is possible. From additional "genders", through homosexuality at every corner thrown at your face and finishing with strong good black women and weak evil white men around every corner. I thought your imagination is as vast as your intellect... i wasn't wrong.

Having said that i don't believe it is the case in this game but unless i play it or read a review of some retard or non-retard whose opinion i trust, i can't know. And so is the author of the original question, i presume.. I am more worried about opinions on steam like this one:

No replayability. Every map is the same, except a few random dungeons. Just a handful of weapons, enemies, skills and classes. Boring in a pretty short time.
In Battle Brothers you have the feeling of a open, rough and vast world, in the iron oath it is the opposite. Everything feels tiny and pointless. Missing depth is another point (skills, enemies and loot).
At the moment the game plays like a rogue-lite that you will forget in a few days. Make a few quests, run around pointlessly and gather boring loot.