The Progression Update is released!

Here we are - v2.7.0 is now live on the main branch! Concurrently, the game is now on sale to celebrate! [i]Please note there are minor save compatibility issues (no crashes expected). If needed, you can access v2.6.3 via the Steam beta branch.[/i] The Progression update focuses on the two main forms of progression in the game: The maps and the heroes. This is a really large update, perhaps even larger than the v2.6 Great War update. Not only that, I believe this might be the best update the game has seen since v1.4. It changes so much of how the game is played in the direction of there being much more to explore - whether we are talking literally about map exploration or figuratively about exploring the various avenues of hero skill synergies. The headlines of the update are as follows: [list][*] New, more compact maps with height differences, win conditions, and an open number of player slots [*] New skill system sorting skills into categories and adding 120+ new subskills [*] New units, new spells, new adventure map buildings, new art upgrades [*] Various QoL improvements and balance changes [*] ~70 bug fixes[/list] If you want a development log about what’s changed and some thoughts about why, you can go check out the [url=https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1656780/view/4205880168553400078][b]previous announcement[/b][/url] - or you can see the short form of the patch notes below. It’s been a long development process stretching across 23 pre-releases, and I want to thank everyone who played and gave feedback on the features as they were being worked on. It is thanks to them that we now all can enjoy this wonderful update. Oh, and thanks to the wonderful community artists who submitted ideas and designs for the various community art updates. Now that v2.7.0 is out, I can start working on v2.8. I’m doing my best to make sure the next update will be a lot smaller than the last two updates, both of which have been much too big. [h3]Play now:[/h3] https://store.steampowered.com/app/1656780/Heros_Hour/ [hr][/hr] [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//40741272/0ba1ae480f8fe548a8fc6a53644d3c51bcce58eb.png[/img] [h2][b]PATCH NOTES SUMMARY[/b][/h2] [h3][b]MAP GENERATION REWORK[/b][/h3] [i]Map generation completely overhauled All maps have been replaced. Some new maps share name or shape with old maps New UI for setting up games 5 new win conditions for some maps (incl. 5 new buildings) New system for creating templates for the random map generator Resource piles now have different levels of wealth depending on what part of the map they spawn on Maps now generate with cliffs Two new terrains: Gold Beach and Dreamscape New large terrain art assets for all terrains[/i] [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//40741272/a4a594e29f70f724801fc47350dd122165e6abfe.png[/img] [h3][b]SKILL SYSTEM REWORK[/b][/h3] [i]The game now uses Skillsets instead of Skilltrees for hero progression by default Sorted all current skills into 47 major skills and the rest into subskills Reworked the following skills: Tactics (now called Strategist), Champion, Aeromancy, Swiftness (now called Wind Pace), Weightless Soul (now called Wing Master), Fortune, Terramancy, Heavy Soul (now called Stone Heart), Enchanting, Swordsmith, Armorsmith (now called Shieldsmith), Pyromancy, Leadership, Armorer, Hydromancy, Offense, Mysticism, Summoning, Avatar, Engineering, Wisdom, Demoralise (now called Horror), Tragedy, Mastery, Scouting Added 2 new major skills: Carnage, Faith Added 54 new general subskills: Affinity, Gambler's Wheel, Inspiration, Lucky Star, Grave Guard, Life From Death, Demonic Reduction, Demoncaller, Possession Cataclysm, Fireleaper, Inferno, Heroism, March Onwards, Persistence, Plating, Lifelink, Aggression, Manalife, Underdog, Grand Physician, Vigour, Belch, Digest, Spit, Betrayal, Survival, Stormbringer, Luckyguards, Life Aether, Jewelsmith, Mana Drain, Demon Blood, Rainstorm, Sapper, Swallow, Conversion, Elite Guard, Brawn, Skepticism, One on One, Dragonform, Guard of None, Dragonslaying, Prism, Customisation, Whimsy, Productivity, Nobility, Forceful Strike, Cult of Muscle, Gold Teeth, Putrid Air, Undying Added 36 new faction subskills: Salary, Royal Tribute, Old Mirth, Elven Artillery, Lunar Rites, March of Nature, Mage General, Spire Attunement, Scholar, Coil of the Dead, Frost Lich, Turn Living, Ritual of Power, Venomus Demonicus, Great Feast, Sandcaster, Hero's Horde, Ritual of Flesh, Swamp Silver, Bog Witching, Scale Lord, Doppelganger, Tunnel, Dragon Whisperer, Ways of the Sea, Pearl Crown, Fire Dance, Gold Digger, Carve Guards, Earthen Eternity, Uphold Tradition, Serene Meditation, Tea Master, Umsql, Cult Recruiter, Romance Added 23 new skills for Rogue Realms: Chemistry as a new major skill, and 22 subskills: Mana Crystals, Buying Life, Golden Blood, Dragonskin, Bestial Fury, Life summoner, Rootcaller, Questing, Analysis, Test the Flesh, Research, Midlife Crisis, Spore Spreading, Budding, Neurotoxin, Mychoral Guard, Artillery, Mechpriest, Inspiring Drum, Energetic Jam, Peace Binding, Province Guards Moved several subskills from Rogue Realms exclusivity to be part of the base game; of the old Rogue Realms exclusive subskills, only Call Beasts, Chemistry, Infest, Tinker, Lovely Tune, Exploitation and Crystal Assembly remains locked to Rogue Realms Designed new skillsets for all heroes Changed which skills and subskills heroes start with Changed, on a skill to skill basis, how many ranks a hero can learn, and what requirements exist for the skill Added 64 new spells for the new skills[/i] [h3][b]OTHER NEW CONTENT[/b][/h3] [i]12 new units added: The Blood Golem, Medician, Mercenary, Nighthowler, Herculean, Terraformed, Questing Raffe, Aether Witch, Vulpella, Life Reaper, Blood Aspirant, Rune Beacon 15 new adventure map buildings added to the game Sea towns have been added as a special type of Brine town for players owning Rogue Realms DLC Added 6 new spells: Nightmare, Dream, Slumber, Detonate, Reap, Root Hand Designed Skirmishes - these were previously randomly generated[/i] [h3][b]COMMUNITY GRAPHICS IMPROVEMENTS[/b][/h3] [i]Improved default boat during naval combat Divine Vessel spell now creates a unique boat with unique overworld and in-battle graphics Lizardfolk heroes now create Turtles instead of Boats at the docks. These have a unique overworld and in-battle graphic Most factions get unique new walls during sieges (by DeadSaracen) All factions get a new unique look for their first aid station warmachine (by SleepyMage) Updated art for Crusader, Paladin, Bloodsucker, Firestinger, Corruptor, Boneliath (by DeadSaracen) Updated art for Enclave units by AntRose Implementing 2 minor graphical updates + 1 overhaul to the pheromones subskills (drawn by AntRose)[/i] [h3][b]MINOR CHANGES[/b][/h3] [i]All hero classes now get a unique silhouette for their artifact equipment screen Guardposts made by Mason now are guaranteed to give their units to the hero defending them when attacked, instead of there being a chance for the enemy to attack the guardpost but not the hero, or a guarantee for this to happen if the hero was uncamped Bodyguards/entourage losses are now calculated differently and more accurately Now all types of entourage units regenerate at 15% each day Week of X unit can no longer roll into technical units such as gods General artifact set and Champion Statue now give +1 Entourage instead of the Bodyguards skill Entourage time scaling now limits entourage units during early game for longer Rogue Statue now gives +3 daily movement instead of the Logistics skill FOW can now be cleared to the very edge of the map More player colours Units with damage reduction now show small glimmers during battle Lorane now starts with Nighthowlers Obelisk visions now look different Tide now starts on Gold Beach terrain, and Delirium starts on Dreamscape terrain Reduced the frequency of Death Coil killing huge amounts of units by increasing the damage dropoff per jump Hex and Toadify spells are now Water-school instead of Earth You can now see what a unit will bloodwarp into by holding B while looking at an expanded unit tooltip Transformation from Apothecary no longer clears curse of undeath from Malediction or Bane Air Shield now stacks with units that already had Ethereal, and stacks with itself when cast multiple times New sprites for the following artifacts: Mesmer's Wall, Batal's Gloves, Ruby Band, Ring of Power, Conjurer's Cape, Champion Banner Reduced the amount of Firepower/Waterpower/Airpower/Earthpower given by artifacts to 1/10th, to match the new spellpower mechanics Changed the effect of some artifacts to no longer give +1 skill point, but instead to use proficiency/entourage/command - Mesmer's Eye - Rabbit's Feet (daily gold income) - Tusk's Immortality - Rogue Trousers - Bluepearl Ring - Locket of Death Removed Learning from a series of artifacts and replaced it with an Experience rate bonus. These are nerfs - Ring of Victory - Regal Tunic - Pompous Crown - Artisan Helmet - Tusk's Helmet - Mandel's Gem Special artifact bonuses such as "Shadowbetrayal", "Grizzly Guard" and "Unit Speed" will now show up in the UI as skills and will now have tooltips explaining their effects Most units have had their living status sorted into more accurate categories (undead, human, draconic etc), and you can now see a unit's living status in its tooltip Heroes now have a per-hero setting for living status Some new living status categories have minor buffs or debuffs, such as Plants taking double damage from the burning status Improved various aspects of the Manage Heroes screen Warmachines now show tooltips when you hover your mouse over them during combat Tailtoads and Snowbeards now have their damage scale correctly and display correctly Infernal Gate is now weaker for armies with very few units (less than 100 unit power) Units that transform still retain proficiency bonus; this includes Lacks AI now prioritises fighting an enemy hero head on over teleporting home to defend their town from that same threat AI now prioritises developing and defending their strongest towns first, and will no longer become confused when two towns close by each-other both are threatened Higher levels of AI now prioritise hiring two heroes immediately when the tavern is bought Projectile Protection now also reduces ranged attack damage by 25% and is now named Deflection Fighter hero classes now gain Knowledge slightly faster Extended the differences between Mob Strength: Low and Mob Strength: High advanced map setting When hovering over the hero's movement bar in the HUD, the number of tiles in the current path is shown on the map Forts and Citadels that require more creature dwellings to build now also show other requirements in their tooltips. Changed the depth at which the Devour text is drawn, to be drawn on top of instead of underneath blood particles Made the resources given by Buried Treasure more controlled; now a certain number of piles will always give gold and a certain number of piles will always give rare resources Reduced the power of Buried Treasure for starting areas for small maps Amount of resources, amount of artifacts, and power of artifacts given by roaming heroes now scale with their level In battles where you gain more unit power than lost, the game will no longer phrase it as losing a negative number Oligarchy now affects entourage units Rewrote the tooltip for Statue of Physique to explain that heroes need to know Might or Ardour to be affected Updated the Elemental Crystal spell in Sample Mods to now use the new, more straightforward mod functionality for summoning spells Prevented the AI from casting Swift Retreat randomly during battles Updated the text in the window that explains army limit size Extended "Force Symmetry" to also guarantee same results when opening chests Extended "Force Symmetry" to also guarantee placing the same artifacts Reduced the variability of undead units by half, tieing the outcomes to specific heroes Heroes who specialise in undead units now have a significantly higher chance of creating those undead units The Idol unit will no longer become converted by Blight Ritual Updated lists of faction units for Custom Skirmish to include v2.6 and v2.7 extra-faction units Improved the tooltip for towns; the size of the small buttons, and the area for the cursor within which the tooltip will stay active Increased the Command of structures that use a lot of unit power, such as the Arena (by +1 command for each 25k gold worth of units) All Units list in Lexicon can now search for unit names or ability names All Units list in Lexicon can now filter for unit tiers Adjusted distance that AI is able to find buried treasure, making it more dependent on number of clues that they have found AI heroes now keep track of cooldown for individual spells during combat, increasing the time between casting the same spell twice Made it possible to right click units into and out of unit conversion buildings Changed how gold cost of Training Grounds is displayed Added Wildren Shrine to Wild's lexicon page Combat will now end faster when fighting Betrayal units that are out of health The mana display on the HUD now more accurately shows mana pct when you have between 0-20% mana Adjusted the number of units summoned by summoning spells to scale more accurately, incl. a lower number of units for low spellpower, incl. fewer units summoned by a single unit casting a summoning spell Blight Ritual will no longer convert your hero's specialty unit if the hero has the Mastery skill Reduced occurrence rates of unlockable heroes to 1/3rd of main heroes Inner Health can no longer be cast on Undead units Increased the stats of catapults that are used during defense Added a description of heroes specialisation unit and starting spells to map selection and lexicon[/i] [h3][b]BALANCE CHANGES[/b][/h3] [i]Siren Song has been made more powerful, its effect increased by 25% Changed how fear works, making it less likely to affect high power units Added fear resistance. Each time a unit is terrified, the duration of its next fear becomes shorter The fear from Wail is now strongly reduced by fear resistance Morale now additionally shortens / lengthens duration of fear Halved the rate at which Tailtoads inflict freeze Increased the attack cooldown of Psychotrophs, Sludge Spitter and Absurdum units Fireflies burst damage now reflects their attack damage Increased Fireflies' attack damage by 50% Reduced Betrayal proc chance from 100% to 100% for player owned and 80% for neutral owned Gilded Pearlshells now have a slightly lower proc chance for both Petrification and Midas Touch Incinerate now deals 150% damage to burning units instead of 200% Buffed stats of following units: Dragonworm, Farmer, Child of Midas, Hound Dog, Hound Tamer, Imp, Glutton, Anima, Forest Spirit, Militia, Halberdier, Spawnling, Deckmate, Soulmage, Lich Nerfed stats / increased cost of following units: Slickspitter, Sneagle, Malcorvid, Infernal, Hellgoat, Sorcerer, Psychotroph, Sludge Spitter, Absurdum, Kroll Bowman, Freshling, Songblade Halved the power of Entourage so it now works like its description and how it was meant to work Entourage can no longer give more units than the total power of all your real units on all your heroes and towns Reduced the xp cost of summoning demons to 1/3rd of what it is Demonology now summons slightly more demons early in the game and slightly fewer units later in the game Reduced the mana cost of Necromancy by 1 mana Reduced the scaling of Necromancy with number of enemy units by 20%, but increased its base strength (same change as what happened with Demonology) Reduced the AOE of Freshling attacks Increased the base health and damage of Shadowcasting and Shadowcloning copies, making these skills less reliant on several ranks Number of Boneguards created by a Bane hero now scales with their level: Number = hero level + 6 * bane rank Taxpayer unit ability now gives +5 gold per power instead of +2 gold per power Increased health of Ophidians, Monster Trogs and Hollow Champions Increased health and damage of Corpseeaters, and health of unupgraded Zombies Removed high level summoning spells from the list of spells that can be cast by Release Reduced the proc rate of release slightly for Amberodes (from 20% to 17.5%) Reduced the duration of Insensate for units not owned by any players to 75% Buffed Goblin health by +5 and Voodoo health by +3 Gave leap units a very short immunity time after landing from a leap Reduced the power of Possession from units that do not belong to any player by 33% Infirmaries are now able to heal any unit that can be hired in town, even if those units are not faction units Nerfed the cost and thus difficulty estimation of Wildren unit Increased Slickspitter cost; decreased Slickspitter growth Increased Venom Darter cost Increased Agony Beetle cost Neutral Roaming heroes now either have half mana, or 30 + one quarter of their mana, whichever is lower Reduced the damage of Cannonneers manning the turrets of Tide walls for neutral encounters Reduced number of Cannonneers manning the turrets of Tide walls from 3 to 2 Greatly increased Health and Damage of Sorcerers Halved the duration of the immunity given by Swift Retreat Changed summoned/miraged units with Midas Touch turning into golden statues to now just leave normal corpses to fix an unintended gold gain Warding now protects against Comet Strikes Projectile protection and range reduction now works against Arrow Rain Avatar now scales off the average of the mana cost of the spell and the actual mana spent on the spell; this reduces the number of units created up to by 50% in case all of the spell's mana cost is paid by Buffer or similar mechanics Limited the effect of gold stacks spawned by battle turning into Artifacts to only happen via Hunter or Plunder Reduced number of Runescribes manning the walls of neutral Earthen combat encounters Flying units that do not belong to any player now can only use their pick-up-and-kill ability on units with 25% less health than before Fixed low rank units turning into Wretched units when turned into undead despite weaker options being available Nerfed amount of Soul power gained from combat to be more flat, closer to 20 per combat Improved Dragon Temple's rate of upgrading dragons by 4x Dragon Temple can now upgrade summoned dragons and entourage dragons, but only for the duration of that battle Warding now protects against Comet Strikes Projectile protection and range reduction now works against Arrow Rain Changed the way that Summoning spells scale with spellpower, unit cost, etc. Overall, they are now a bit weaker but scale better lategame Nerfed the secondary effect of the Hunting skill (giving artifacts when fighting beasts that did not come from Hidden Beasts) Increased the time to attack for Ranged units with Wind-up, more accurately halving their attack speed Reduced damage of Cultists and Spiritists Increased Venom proc chance for low tier units, mostly affecting Cultists, Spiritists and Venom Darters Reduced number of Grey Boys on avatars slightly for avatars after the first Forbidden Tome can now at most give +10 knowledge Units that summon units summon fewer units (see "Minor Changes: Adjusted the number of units summoned by summonings spells to scale more accurately") Doubled the resources given by Commercial Centre town perk[/i] [h3][b]MODDING[/b][/h3] [i]You may now specify unique targets for bloodwarping and other similar effects when doing unit mods by adding in a new line called "Elite Target: Nameofunit" Heroes can now have their living status set Global variables can now be read and changed by prefacing a variable with an @ instead of using the global_read() and global_set() functions New function to make heroes unavailable by conventional means, allowing creation of special heroes Complete overhaul of skill modding New modding custom scripting functions: - find_object_index(name) - find_sprite_index(name) - add_sprite(filename,number_of_frames,x_origin,y_origin) - draw_sprite(sprite_index, image_index, x, y, x_scale, y_scale) - draw_sprite_outline(sprite_index, image_index, x, y, x_scale, y_scale) Two new functionalities: - put @ before the variable name in variable_exists() to check if the named global variable exists - array_create() and list_create() can now take any number of arguments to instantly put inside the list/array Technical unit groups for the various factions now get generated BEFORE mods are loaded, allowing you to use these groups with mods Implemented support for replacing unit sprites along with the new Unit Edit format Implemented support for replacing unit sprites without using a Unit Edit data.txt file[/i] [h3][b]BUG FIXES[/b][/h3] [i]Reduced the hard disc use when showing the battle menu Docks building will no longer show up in the middle of battlefields when fighting near a docks Heroes who gain knowledge when leveling up also gain the +10 to current mana Fixed rooted units still being able to use Charge Removed the graphical effect of True Strike (archery bonus) on Blaster attacks hitting own units AI will no longer use Devour Own indiscriminately in fights against the player Fixed a bug that might make the AI pay for a hero without getting them Fixed AI not prioritising tavern for players with Rogue Realms installed Fixed autobattle spellcasting simulations sometimes making a battle a loss that was a win before the spell simulation Fixed Paradisic Meadow showing +1 bonus while giving a +2 bonus Casting Chaos while in a naval battle will no longer scatter units into the water Fixed a bug that made unlockable heroes have different town building layouts than other heroes Fixed a bug that made Mercury Boosts draw half souls instead of full ones Fixed Hydra Heralds not triggering correctly if dying in a battle that an enemy initiated Fixed several other post-battle effects not triggering correctly when battle was initiated by an enemy The daily ore income from Carver Stalls now is displayed correctly Setting all players to be on the same team will no longer trigger any achievements Taming now works correctly after autocombat Fixed High Unit Growth advanced map setting quadrupling unit growth instead of just doubling it Fixed a bug that would sometimes leave roaming heroes stuck on treasure Fixed Swift Retreat giving immunity when used by an AI that wouldn't use it to retreat Heroes with Infest can now interact with buildings that have already been visited specifically to Infest them Fixed Buried Treasure giving 2x as much sulphur as other rare resources Made sure that the Watering Well unit growth now rounds down when at 0.5 instead of sometimes rounding up and sometimes rounding down Fixed a bug that made units with leap underestimate or overestimate how far to charge / leap, especially when dealing with units with taunt Fixed Potency spells showing up in the Spellbook special spells tab Fixed a bug that allowed Shadowlocked or Petrified units to leave the battlefield in rare scenarios Fixed a rare bug crashing the game on the Last Week map Fixed a bug that would sometimes end a battle before a unit with Splitting or Potent Soul could use its on-death ability if that unit were the last unit fighting on its side of the battle Fixed flying units not scaling the walls even when permitted to or when the walls were breached Fixed Soul Beacon mercury boosting showing a different amount of units than what is actually given Fixed a bug that made the resource lost pop-up animation not show the number -1 Fixed a bug that would crash the game when Haste was offered in a scroll or pandora Fixed a bug related to Pearl-searching particles being spawned off screen and piling up Chaos unit ability can no longer teleport units from boats into the water Fixed an exploit where you could force the Batal artifact set bonus to always proc by just not clicking the level-up button on your hero Fixed Soul Beacon not triggering each day in Hotseat PvP games and for the AI Fixed the tooltip for Pheromones spell stating that the spell deals damage when it in fact does not Fixed new Unit Edit files not correctly desyncing abilities from base unit and upgraded unit Fixed the Rogue artifact set bonus shadow heroes not syncing caster/fighter abilities Fixed a bug that would crash the game when Haste was offered in a scroll or pandora Fixed a bug related to Pearl-searching particles being spawned off screen and piling up Changed summoned/miraged units with Midas Touch turning into golden statues to now just leave normal corpses to fix an unintended gold gain Fixed Soul Beacon mercury boosting showing a different amount of units than what is actually given Fixed a bug that made the resource lost pop-up animation not show the number -1 Fixed being able to dig for buried treasure while your hero is mid-movement, which would mess up the revealed treasure Fixed a graphical error in the Carcass sprite Fixed Academy being able to give lessons to avatars, which wouldn't do anything Fixed typo in description of Second Wind and Chaos spells (batte instead of battle) Fixed Diplomacy not combining separate stacks of identical units into a single stack Fixed some UI overlap issues with the hero window Fixed a bug that sometimes would have combat end before all units had deployed if enough units were killed at once Fixed casting Transform on low tier units making the game lag and eventually turn them into random, higher-power units Fixed Resurrection prioritising non-permanent units instead of prioritising permanent units Fixed a bug that would make summoned units that had been hexed able to be resurrected into permanent units Fixed a bug that meant that Balistas firing very far would deal no damage Units can no longer drown in naval combat if they are victorious Fixed a bug where certain buff spells could be repelled by Warding Fixed a bug where certain v2.6 units were not considered technical units when playing without Rogue Realms Fixed Entourage units not being considered when the AI is deciding to flee Fixed Necromancy not giving mana to avatars when using the Drain option Fixed the daily gold income of Exarch set bonus not being displayed in the gold income tooltip Fixed Wildren Shrine and Loss Shrine not being translated correctly Fixed a bug that made Forbidden Tome give one more knowledge than the number of spells you knew Made sure mana regen is described as an integer in the tooltip for Knowledge even when the hero has the Regeneration skill Fixed Lieutenant Hall not giving the same hero as what is displayed in the UI Fixed a bug that would allow you to duplicate Delirium heroes Fixed an occasional crash when the AI was trying to protect a town they'd town-portaled to Fixed a bug with the save file compression algorithm that would prevent the final 1-128 values not be recorded when compressing a grid Fixed certain combat encounters having no command (such as catapults) - now 1 command is minimum in all cases[/i] [hr][/hr] [h3]Save [b]60%[/b] on the base game, with additional discounts on our bundles:[/h3] https://store.steampowered.com/app/1656780/Heros_Hour/ https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/30963/Heros_Hour_Collection/ https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/42688/Sandwalkers__Heros_Hour/