Our intentions for Patch 1.3
Hi Blackguards players,
with the help of a lot of very good feedback from you - thanks for that - we have decided for some changes we would like to make to the game with next patch. Our impressions are that the communication of the ruleset / understanding the rules, being able to make choices based on detailed feedback and some re-balancing are what the game would benefit the most from.
Thus, you will see some bigger alterations to the gameplay with the next major patch 1.3. The most important of those are:
- Hit chances will now always be visible. By everyone and against everyone. With every ability. - This is inteded to allow you to make better choices at any time and no longer have to guess what you hit chances are, no matter if you skilled 'Warcraft' or 'Animal Lore' or not. Those talents will be reworked accordingly to give better passive stats against opponents of the corresponding type, so that investing AP into them will still be worth it.
- A mouse-over text will show you whether a certain character is still able to parry in this turn or if the parry is already gone. Blue = can parry. Red = can't parry. - It's a very important game mechanic that a character is only able to parry once a turn. Characters who cannot parry are only able to evade, which is in most cases less likely to succeed. Exploiting this mechanic allows for a much more tactical approach in battle, so it should help you to have a better overview on who's more vulnerable right now.
- Detailed battle log. - You'll be able to optionally activate a 'verbose' kind of battle log that will show you the dice rolls the game made, so you are able to investigate in retrospective what exactly worked and what did not. Based on that feedback you should be able to make better skill and item choices for you characters.
- Skill (talents, spells, abilities) descriptions will be reworked to show the exact benefits and disadvantages. - This is yet another change to allow you to make better choices, especially before investing AP into a certain skill, but also when using one.
- More clear item descriptions, better comparability. - The way item stats are shown will get a complete overhaul to allow for better stat comparison and understanding.
- Autosaves between follow-up battles. - It was often requested that saving the game between two follow-up battles should be possible. We'll adress this by auto-saving the game before any battle now.
- Equipment changes in flashback fights. - Some players mentioned that flashback fights were really tough because they didn't get the equipment their characters we're skilled for. This will be solved by granting players the needed skills and weapons temporarily.
- Reworked skills - Alongside the changes to the talents 'Warcraft' and 'Animal Lore', the abolish poison spell 'Clarum Purum' is too weak because poison can simply be applied again and again if the attacker hits, forcing the caster to cast 'Clarum Purum' again and again to no significant avail. 'Clarum Purum' will thus be reworked to grant posion immunity for some turns, based on the spell's level.
- Some balancing changes regarding items and spells. - We'll provide details in the patch changelog.
The penny pinch.. erm ecologically minded in me just rebels to the idea of leaving an energy consuming application running for a couple of hours for no good reason!