Hello! I'm Mr. Slate and here you can find the patch notes for v.0.7.1 of the MoonWard Demo! This is the latest and as of today current MoonWard patch version.
I can't believe it's been 2 months since I wrote one of these patch notes! I've made so much progress in that time. Hopefully you'll keep reading and forgive the massive delay.
My focus was content. Just. Content. More stories, locations, items, enemies. More of it all.
That leads me to a massive disclaimer. The story and gameplay structure has changed so much that I've been unable to make characters from older versions compatible. I apologise to everyone who will lose progress but I hope you'll find this new version much better and worth a playthrough. If it's any consolation, I don't believe this lack of backwards compatibility will be an issue going forward.
Lastly, before I continue, you can download the latest version of the MoonWard Demo here!
Please consider joining my Patreon, for early access content and many more perks, or donating through my Ko-fi page!
Let's get to the patch notes!
1. Improved brawl screen and effects.
Where do I even start with this one. Lets go with the obvious, I moved around pretty much all elements at the top of the screen to make it more readable at a glance and less cluttered. You can probably notice the status effects under the names - they are now cantered.
Speaking of status effects, I added unique animations to each status particle/damage number. In fact, all damage numbers now have unique animations for their hit particles.
Hits now trigger a new screen shake system that makes fights a bit more engaging and is an extra way of providing feedback.
2. Improved conversation screen.
Its kind of hard to tell but gone are the solid white screens, the scene intros and dialogue panels are all animated smoothly when a scene starts.
I also streamlined the screen a bit to allow for more of the location image to be seen. This is especially noticeable on 3x4 aspect ratio devices.
Another improvement here is the skip button. Someone told me they expected it to skip to the next skill check/choice and so it behaves like that now! I might add an option to toggle between this and the old full skip in the settings. Let me know what you think!
3. Many new items.
Few dozen actually. Granted most of those are quest items and valuable. There are however a few major exceptions.
Firstly I created a Rare Items loot table that has been added to some higher danger bounties. This list includes quite a lot of powerful new items so keep an eye out!
Secondly, and more importantly, I finally added an Estus Flask! Well, my equivalent of it. I won't spoil how to get it, though there is a story which specifically addresses this. I'll just say that It starts inert and needs to be made functional, and that it can be upgraded after that.
I suppose I should touch on the valuables. I added about a dozen plants to the loot tables. They range wildly in price. I think they'll add a bit of variety to the loot. Actually that reminds me - all bounties now come with 8 possible loot items as opposed to 6 or even 4 before. This is important because you can get a maximum of 8 items through abilities and skills.
4. Added more defence types to armour.
One of my latest and favourite additions. I almost didn't do it, too! All armour pieces (with specific exceptions) now have all defence types and elemental resistances by default.
Different materials also have advantages and disadvantages. For example, metal is weak against shock, but good against Deep and Occult. Leather is better against cold and poison but rubbish against fire. All of those effects can still appear as bonuses too.
It's not shown here but there is also a handy new tab in the item-details popup where you can view all resistances of an armour piece.
I think all of this adds another layer to character building and loadouts based on opponents. Though I tried to make it so you can still rely on the odd bonus resistance or defence from equipment as well as your characters' ability bonuses.
5. Many new bounties and locations.
I may have gone a little crazy with this.
There are 5 new unique locations for main and side stories. There are 6 new locations for bounties up to a total of 17. And lastly, there is a brand new biome - the city of Elmstadt.
I won't try to count how many new bounties I've added to the roster. I'll just say, the second county only had 2 biomes with partial lists of bounties. It now has bounties in every biome and the lists are about as full as county 1. Oh, and county 1 got a bunch more bounties too. Because it was fun and I couldn't stop myself. That's why.
6. Many new enemies.
This one was a long time coming. I've been meaning to make oozes for about a year now.
Oozes are a type of (tricky) elementals that you'll encounter at lower levels. They may have come out a little stronger than I wanted, but should still be weaker than the old elementals. For example they don't have ranged attacks and apply afflictions much slower. They are, however, tricky and will often try to stagger you before attacking.
There is another kind of enemy I added to the game - Luanar. Those who have played through the demo know that the county 1 boss is a proud member of this group. Well, these new luanar are as far removed as possible from this character. Without spoiling too much, they are a representation of what Luan's Curse leads to. An end point your character is also headed towards.
7. Improved storyline flow.
Speaking of the player's predicament. I finally managed to spend some time building the narrative.
So far MoonWard has been a collection of odd stories. That's not the case anymore. Your character has more meaningful and intentional encounters with the people of Vinterstrath and beyond. I spent the majority of the last 2 months building this more engaging story and I believe it is a massive improvement over what was there before.
What was there has been touched up with more and meaningful mechanical and role-playing choices. Without spoiling specifics, I'll just say, some of those choices tie directly to your ability to access gameplay mechanics. Some are mandatory while others can be missed.
There is still some work on the storyline aspect of MoonWard but I think this was a massive move in the right direction. Let me know what you think.
8. Story dialogue transcriber.
Unlike the rest, this is actually very easy to describe. When you finish an adventure which is part of a main or side story you have access to the transcribed dialogue in a sub menu of the story screen. This tracks your decisions too, so it will appear exactly as it did in the cinematic scenes. This way you can keep track of past adventures and choices you made. I also just think it looks neat.
9. Interactive Brawl Tutorial.
This has been on my mind for too long. To tell the truth I was dreading building it but in the end it only took a few days.
This is essentially my version of the standard highly directed tutorial where buttons are locked until you are told to use them. It's a bit more complicated than that but that's the basics. If you've played any game with complicated UI you've seen this. You can replay it at any time too. Cause I'm nice.
My twist is that I built an entire dialogue system for it. I haven't used it outside of the tutorial yet but I can see the potential for some cool interactive boss battles here. We'll see if I've got the time for that. Fingers crossed!
10. County intro cinematics.
I just added this! Every time you travel to a county you'll get a few second long first person intro to it! That's about it.
I think this helps make the world a bit more lived in and is a nice transition into the map screen. I found it also helps reinforce my spatial awareness. That is, It should feel less like you're a bodiless ghost hovering over the map, and instead more so like you're there. At least I hope so. Please let me know if you think I'm full of it!
11. Fixed bugs and typos.
Yup. Did that. Unfortunately there were plenty of bugs left over in the last patch. I've addressed those. Maybe I should include a list of fixed bugs here? What do you think?
Wow that's taken a lot longer than usual. The notes, not the patch. Although... yeah I took my time with this one. I'll start getting them quicker, I promise.
Either way, thank you all for your time! I work hard on these patches so please give the MoonWard Demo a try!
Have a great week and like always, stay awesome!
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