Pre-Volunheim Mega Patch

Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2024
SAVAGE: The Shard of Gosen Game Banner
Genre: Action, Adventure, Indie, RPG, Early Access
Developer: Planet Tobor
Release Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2019
Hail, Barbarian Horde! ⚔

This update is big, juicy AND nutrient rich - but does not include Volunheim. We will get there!

For now, I wanted to deliver a video to you covering the bigger, more interesting additions, fixes, and improvements to SAVAGE as I hack and slash my way toward a big, PROPER Volunheim content update.



Below, for fun, are some of the info graphics and GIFs used in the presentation.

Player Traversal Fixes and Improvements



  • Fixed a TON of softlock and outright crash issues related to moving around, climbing, speed, entering and exiting certain rooms - LOTS of improvements to the worldmap - Kell and other overworld assets look better'
  • Entering and exiting locations feel a lot better and less janky - Fixes to the overworld camera - Overall better game feel - New "dust/air" sprites for jumping, landing, dodge rolling, and skidding
  • ALL COLLISION SPRITES have been redone (damage types, collisions, destructibles, etc.) - MORE THINGS to "pogo" (downward strike) off of -- including moveable objects, breakables, and enemy melee objects
  • More interactive elemets -- i.e., toss a corpse on a springing spike trap to create a rideable elevator that you can stack other things on top of to reach higher locations






ENEMY IMPROVEMENTS!!




  • Tons of fixes to hitboxes
  • Enemy melee placements were WAY OFF for many enemies (FIXED)
  • Tuning to timings, AI, and stats have been adjusted to most enemies
  • Some enemies and bosses (Lesser Horror, as an example) have gotten NEW movesets
  • Fixes to bounding box objects for larger, stranger shaped monsters

BOSS IMPROVEMENTS!!




  • Same as above - and also to boss “arenas”






LUCK AND FAVOR REVAMP




  • Luck behaves independently to Favor, aside from Luck increasing when Favor does
  • Other events, planned consummables, RITUALS (coming soon) will increase luck
  • LUCK influences frequency of item drops, rarity of drops, money gained on a gold drop, IF there is gold, gives you a bit of an edge in dialogue skill checks (intimidate, reason, lying, etc.)
  • FAVOR will now influence things like WHAT enemies will appear in a spawn table in certain areas (like procedurally generated map encounters), and therefore what items will be available to farm (nastier, damage dealing weapons, think more sinister and deadly for negative Favor -- armor, shields and curatives for positive favor)
  • Favor will also influence bonuses from effects given to gear that has been affixed with a corresponding Fetish, whether or not certain NPCs might appear, what scenarios will appear on the worldmap
  • Favor will also dictate whether "Shadow Kell" spawns on death, whether he hunts you (all that being said, you could intentionally LOWER your favor, die, spawn Shadow Kell -- RAISE Favor to get access to Shadow Kell exclusive positive Favor drops - Kill Shadow Kell. Profit)




STAT IMPROVEMENTS AND OVERHAULS




  • Attack and Defense ratings and how they work together has been refactored (dealing damage)
  • Kell now does very little damage without a weapon, and defense is low without armor
  • Scaling now matters a LOT more on gear
  • Began tuning stats across all gear




CUNNING OVERHAUL!!




  • Points into Cunning actually works now!
  • Parry system overhaul! "Parry opportunity" stat from Cunning
  • Critical Strike damage bonuses, along with flashy blood and collision sprites to show you got a critical strike
  • Critical damage can now be STACKED across certain parameters, like weakness to damage type, position, parry, backstab, headshot
  • Big, satisfying, juicy critical strike numbers
  • Evasion is now affected by Cunning -- More points into Cunning makes your dodges faster and have more iframes at the start of your dodge animation -- this ALSO makes shields more effective, and positioning more important if you DON'T put points into Cunning
  • Individual stat lines are starting to make more impact, making character growth and progression more interesting




NEW ITEMS




  • Wayward grit has been added to drop tables and actually works now (heals armor hp)
  • New weapon category: "Whips", along with new whip category weapons
  • New "knife" category weapons
  • Certain enemies can have parts of them cut off and used as a weapon (i.e. the Lesser Horror's tongue)
  • Some new key items and story related items
  • More weapons and items have been added to containers and drop tables
  • More items added and changes made to NPC stores -- i.e. the Blacksmith in Gussek now sells keys


TONS OF FIXES AND OTHER IMPROVEMENTS




  • Visit the Steam discussion page to view the pinned patch notes (it's very long)


VERY BIG AND LONG UPDATE




  • I am going to start doing smaller, more frequent updates. I like putting these out more regularly to you, and it means there isn't a huge amount of stuff to try to communicate to you.




ALSO - what do you guys wanna see? I'm sure everybody wants more content -- I WANT more content, too! for smaller systems -- Some things that still need to be added:


  • A map system -- "optional" For people who want to be brave (and also lost, most likely) -- optional map consumables
  • Recipe list for alchemy and cooking - GET ALL THE PERKS/SKILLS in there!
  • Remaining features for the FORGE (improvement, salvage, "lore")
  • Bestiary needs to be added (monster names, lore, weaknesses, drops, etc.)


Let me know and I will prioritize this sort of stuff for, if not the next update, a future update!

Thanks again for all of your support!!

-Matt

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