Solasta - Welcome 2021

Henriquejr spotted the new dev-update for Solasta: Crown of the Magister:

Dev Update #26 - Welcome 2021 & Community Feedback #2!

Hello there everyone,

Hope you all enjoyed some quality winter break, hiding under your blanket sipping hot cocoa like I did. In any case Tactical Adventures is back at work, ready to build features, create assets and slay more bugs! And we're not the only ones back either…

Our adorable feline friends are making a comeback too!

What's been cooking since our Winter Update?
You probably noticed, the Winter Update was not exactly bug-free. And while nothing is ever perfectly bug-free - especially during an Early Access - let's not pretend that we were anywhere close to satisfied when we saw the amount of bugs this last update introduced. Which is why we're planning on releasing an update focused on polish next week, which will tackle most of the issues brought up by the community these last few weeks.

The fixes should range from the most problematic ones, such as the one teleporting and locking you into a cutscene after killing ghosts in the Wizard's Tower, to more annoying ones that have been around for a long time, such as fixing some feats which just didn't work. In any case, we'll be releasing the full patch notes when the update drops as usual!

Any future content update plans in mind?
Honestly? We're not certain. As some of you already know, we've stated on our Steam Early Access FAQ that we're aiming for around 6 months of Early Access. While we can never be sure of the exact duration (otherwise we'd already have announced a release date), we don't intend to stray too far from that estimation.

Every content update we drop has an impact on the final release of the game: we need to stabilize the build, test it, debug it and polish it before putting it on Steam, and our Winter Update was a good example of how things can sometimes go wrong when we don't allocate sufficient time for that. All of this is time invested away from completing the final game, since there's a good chance we'll be altering or breaking things again when we add or change game systems later on.

Which means we're currently balancing our options between A) solely focusing towards the finish line and get the final version of the game out so that everyone can enjoy Solasta in its entirety, with all its intended features and full campaign - or B) working out appropriate conditions and time to churn out another content update before that. And while the latter would allow us to have you try out new features and levels to keep the feedback coming on improvements and suggestions, there is always this little risk looming around the corner of impacting the final release - or worse, having to cut a feature or a level.

That being said, it just might end up that we'll be able to release a content update around the end of Winter without having to compromise anything in our final release, but we've always been very transparent with you on the how's and why's when we make decisions. In any case, be certain that we'll keep you informed if or when we do decide to release a new content update!

[…]

More information.

Great to see they are on top of everything. I'm also pleased I haven't bothered playing the Winter Update since I try not to 'over play' EA's.

I love the transparency with these guys!

I too haven't played the new content, although I did 3 playthroughs on its first release and really enjoyed it!

My 10 cents would be for them to concentrate on the final release!
For them not to release more content, but keep updating the EA with improvements / tweaks / bug fixes etc. as they go (no new content).

There are still issues but nothing so shocking at this point, this is a very promising game

Since they're a small team, I think they absolutely need to release at least one content update at some point because they obviously can't spend so much time on testing just by themselves. They received a lot of bug reports and suggestions with the EA, and a lot of that was related to the content and the overall balance, different people play differently and that reveals problems they wouldn't have thought of.

It's their very first game, and they can't afford a final release with a lot of bugs.

I love the commitment from the small independent studios. They know what to do without big business marketing departments telling them to release before it is completed!

Lue.

Aye, you have to have some serious faith in people that aren't afraid to show their love right on their sleeves, and are completely upfront/forthcoming with all relevant information. You can be small yet still be mighty!

To…much…positivity in this thread it burns…yet I can't help but agree.

Simply put in the beginning I disliked this game but I've began to thaw my opinion.