SOFT LAUNCH: Build 1.5.70

[John]

Build 1.5.70 Release Notes

SOFT LAUNCH BUILD!

IN GAME MARKETPLACE IS LIVE!

Bug Fixes:

• Battle: Fixes to Beach ice layers
• Battle: Bird of Prey VFX alignment fixed
• Battle: Great Hall Bear animations fixed
• Marketplace: Fix mismatched sale prices between game GUI and steam overlay in non-USD

Changes:

• Great Hall: Tournament Banner added
• Battle: Wall map optimized bird animations
• Battle: Tutorial map added torch animations
• Battle: Beach and Great Hall fogging optimized
• Battle: New sounds for Match Resolution
• Battle: Underdog bonus kicks in if opponent has 3 more power (was 6)
• Battle: Global chat no longer shows up in Battle Chat window
• Hall of Valor: Now displays Tournament rankings
• Tutorial: Texts updated
• Tutorial: 2 new tutorial videos added in-game. See the Banner button in upper right of Strand
• Tutorial: Intro videos before and after combat
• Tutorial: Auto starts when the game launches, can be replaced from the Banner button
• Marketplace: NO LONGER IN SANDBOX MODE -- things cost real money
• Marketplace: Eternal Rally Boost added
• Marketplace: Price reduced on Launch Special Starter Pack
• Marketplace: Descriptive text added for Renown and Variations
• Marketplace: All items on sale for Soft Launch
• GUI: Escape key backs out of most GUIs as one would expect
• Versus: New Sword clash sound
• Versus: Matching power difference restriction opens up more slowly (60 seconds from zero to 6)
• Friend: Global Chat no longer shows up in friend lobby

General Notes:

• The game always writes log files into $HOME/tbs_logs/. You can access this or email it to us for bug reporting
• Toggle fullscreen with CONTROL-SHIFT-F
• Toggle performance indicator with CONTROL-SHIFT-P. The number displayed is milliseconds per frame, not FPS
• If you crash on startup on Mac OS X, remove the folder "/Library/Frameworks/Adobe AIR.framework"

[piotras]

it looks awesome! Great introduction and setting the scene, like it a lot!

What I found until now:

- you can have negative winning streaks
- in the initial tutorial you intorude Pillage with "!" as part of it's name and later on use it without, a grammar nazi would disapprove

EDIT:
- I had prices in £ before, but now it's in this strange currency, $? What is this anyway?

[Jorgensager]

When I played the tutorial, I reacted on the following:

- The banner symbol wasn't there, so I didn't see the stats of characters besides from the side panel when they were in play.

- ^ is obviously a problem when the tutorial uses statements such as <the chieftain obviously being strong>, or similar, and there is no way to see his stats.

- It describes the action options for a turn after the shieldbanger has moved, so the "movement" symbol isn't actually visible. This is minor, but for all I know it could confuse new players.

- On the warhawk ability, it tells you to select the ability, then confirm it by clicking the green check mark, which is white...

- I think you should add confirmation screens whenever we hire combatants with renown. Since renown is for sale for real money, this would only be fair to the players to avoid unintentional hires. (I assume this has been suggested by others a long time ago already, but just in case..)

- The currency in the Marketplace [$] is not the one Steam sells me games in... but neither was the one in Sandbox mode [£], which Steam did send me receipts for. I don't know if it worked because it didn't actually count, or if Steam allows you to bill people in whatever currency you prefer, so I decided to mention it.

[John]

Good suggestions RE the tutorial!

Yes, I a confirmation when hiring units would be reasonable.

Also, concerning the currency symbol, I believe that was just an oversight that we should be able to resolve with the next update.

When I played the tutorial, I reacted on the following:

- The banner symbol wasn't there, so I didn't see the stats of characters besides from the side panel when they were in play.

- ^ is obviously a problem when the tutorial uses statements such as <the chieftain obviously being strong>, or similar, and there is no way to see his stats.

- It describes the action options for a turn after the shieldbanger has moved, so the "movement" symbol isn't actually visible. This is minor, but for all I know it could confuse new players.

- On the warhawk ability, it tells you to select the ability, then confirm it by clicking the green check mark, which is white...

- I think you should add confirmation screens whenever we hire combatants with renown. Since renown is for sale for real money, this would only be fair to the players to avoid unintentional hires. (I assume this has been suggested by others a long time ago already, but just in case..)

- The currency in the Marketplace [$] is not the one Steam sells me games in... but neither was the one in Sandbox mode [£], which Steam did send me receipts for. I don't know if it worked because it didn't actually count, or if Steam allows you to bill people in whatever currency you prefer, so I decided to mention it.

[RadioactiveMan]

I can report a weird bug- after the tutorial battle, I went to the mead house as directed by the tutorial but then pushed escape because I wanted to try starting without creating a Thrasher. I got dumped into the city of Strand and could cue up for fights but could not make a match for a long time (there were definitely other players cueing up during that time). I ended up quitting the game and when I restarted I got booted back into the tutorial... I guess you HAVE to make a Thrasher, which is fine, but its weird to end up in the city of Strand and be effectively unable to play if you try to circumvent this.

[quartex]

The current on-saele renown prices are a bit odd. The normal prices sell renown for 15 per dollar/18 per dollar/20 per dollar and 25 per dollar, depending on which level you buy. The on sale prices sell renown for 30 per dollar/36 per dollar/28.5 per dollar/33.3 per dollar. So it makes the most sense to buy the $2.50 pack of renown. I'm sure Stoic has more important things to worry about that the prices for the next week, but it does make buying 3 copies of the $2.50 pack much better than buying the $7 pack. (270 vs 200 renown)

[Flickerdart]

On the seaside map, the seagulls hover in place instead of flying anywhere. It's creepy.

[mcloud357]

the banner saga for me keeps on crashing on start up. never mind it seems to resovled itself

[quartex]

Am I the only person who wasn't able to rename my thrasher when promoting him during the tutorial?

[raven2134]

That's the norm. You really can't rename him.

[Jorgensager]

I encountered a graphical bug in expert mode where the timer showed as a black circle (i.e. "empty") with the graphical timer effect moving around.

Am I the only person who wasn't able to rename my thrasher when promoting him during the tutorial?

If you have too much renown you can waste 15 of it to rename him via his lore page.

[Agata]

Amazing! Loved the intro, the art work, the voices... very very cool!

I miss global chat in game. I know some people didn't like it there, but i think it'd be great to have the option to include it. This was particularly nice when you'd log on and ask if anyone was around and folks would respond from in game saying they were around, but playing.

I also got stuck in mid-tutorial strand by hitting escape when "hiring" the Thrasher. I had to quit and start over with it to get it to work.

[Jorgensager]

Do you think it would be possible to assign a key to skip animations after a game ends? I.e. to see which bonuses triggered your renown score and see the renown score + any new promotions available, without having to sit through each animation?

Also, do you have any plans on improving the pathfinder algorithm to not suggesting walking more on glowing coal than necessary, when there are two (or more) equally expensive paths (but one with less glowing coal)?

[piotras]

Jorgensager, in the city of strand view (main menu?) there's a banner icon in the upper right corner, there are some basics of playing but also 2 videos which cover a lot of basic and more advanced stuff, one of those movies shows how you can do pathways by yourself (in general you just click on the tiles you want to go one by one and than confirm at the very end, but cheack out the videos they are very clear).


BTW. The end of the introduction should be much more aggressive at telling people about extra tutorials, since hardly anybody remembers/knows about them, I'm telling people about all the time today.

[Flickerdart]

Bug: Bloody Flail did absolutely no damage to target (final strike was a miss, maybe that has something to do with it?).

[Tirean]

Bug: Bloody Flail did absolutely no damage to target (final strike was a miss, maybe that has something to do with it?).

I can imagine what happened here. You bloody flailed someone who had 0 armor left but had shieldwall active. So you hit all armor damage so did 0 dmg?

[Flickerdart]

Nope, the flail had one or two swings come up red.

[Jorgensager]

Jorgensager, in the city of strand view (main menu?) there's a banner icon in the upper right corner, there are some basics of playing but also 2 videos which cover a lot of basic and more advanced stuff, one of those movies shows how you can do pathways by yourself (in general you just click on the tiles you want to go one by one and than confirm at the very end, but cheack out the videos they are very clear).

Yeah, I'm aware, I'm just pointing out that there is no reason for the pathfinder to give you an unoptimal path. Besides, making it as simple as possible for the player to do what they intend should be the goal with game design, right?

[Bloodaddict]

Not sure if this was reported already, but I think the ratings get only updated after exiting the game and start it again. Or do I just have to wait longer?

[Flickerdart]

Two more bugs - trying to launch game crashes every other time (Windows 7 64 bit). My login streak is also still only 1 despite logging in yesterday too.