MoonWard Demo v0.9.59 Patch Notes!

Hello! I'm Mr. Slate and here you can find the patch notes for v.0.9.59 of the MoonWard Demo! This is the latest and as of today current MoonWard patch version.

The focus for this patch was the multi-stage boss fights, quality of life features like favouriting items, polish and bug fixing.

Lastly, before I continue, you can download the latest version of the MoonWard Demo here!

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Let's get to the patch notes!

1. Updated notes to allow multiple entries!

I could have sworn this was already in when I started work on adding the books but it turned out I only supported one entry per note. I'm sure past me is laughing at the nice surprise he sent my way.

Anyway - the problem was that the data structure only supported one entry and because the system is already in use by you lovely players I couldn't just re-build it. So I employed a bit of my old-school moding skills. It's really simple, because I only had an integer per note to work with I decided to use the integer digits like an array - so the first entry of the note is the right most digit of the number, the second entry of the note is the second right most digit etc. This way I can also increment the digit to use as a flag for when each individual entry is read. I don't need that much granularity as all entries appear at the same time but it's a nice to have. So yeah - a bit hacky but really robust and works well (and fast).

2. Added purchasable books.

In all fairness I had the functionality of books in the game already, I just didn't have the articles those books would contain. So a large part of this was writing lore entries for various notes.

Like for example more detailed descriptions of animals, their behaviours and what works best against them. All the new entries are written as if they were part of the books - they are fully diegetic and I had a ton of fun thinking of characteristics for the writers. Like one is a no-nonsense Bear Grills type and so their writing style is short and to the point. Another is very academic and extremely untrusting of the empire so their writing is elaborate and very biting.

I'll be adding more books and notes in general as I've been doing for a while. I'm thinking a cook-book or two where you can learn more about the different consumables. Maybe a DIY book that has a section on log cabin building so you learn what animals tend to live where. We can have a bunch of fun with this.

3. New NPC art!

Following on last patch's player character icons, I've started producing icons for the NPC's using the new art!

So far I've done all the story NPC's. The one major change is Augustus who is a Drak. I've replaced his portrait entirely. But he's kind of a drastic update, I'm not planning on changing all of them to the new art. I'll begin converting the bounty enemy icons for next patch.

Oh and I sneakily added a handful of new Player portraits. I'm planning on having at least 3 for each race for a feature I'll talk about soon.

4. New map hex art!

The unique tiles for County 4 are complete. It was a lot of work - there's a surprisingly small amount of hand drawn isometric victorian/industrial building images out there. Now that I say that I realise it's an extremely niche request.

Oh well! I ended up tracing some building photographs and then embellishing a bit. It was not easy and the result is admittedly not quite at the high quality most of the other tiles are at but it'll have to do for now. I'm considering hiring someone but money is getting tight again so I'm not sure when I'll be able to afford that.

5. Improved carry weight and roll speed.

This is where the majority of my balancing time went into. Rolling felt a little sluggish at low burden and the amount of carry weight felt off for characters wearing full heavy armour.

The rolling speed turned out to be a bug where your roll move duration was always a little longer than it should have been. This meant even at 0 burden you'd roll a bit sluggish. I tweaked the formula and it should now put you at no roll penalty for the first 25% of burden and will apply progressive penalties at 25%, 50% and finally - over 100%.

Secondly - the carry weight amount. I hadn't looked into this for a while and I tend to play fast characters so I don't naturally test heavy builds. Well I did and I found out that you could wear all heavy armour and use the heaviest shield/weapon and with the right build - still be under 100% burden at level 1. That's obviously no good. There should be some incentive for increasing your carry capacity. So I did some number crunching and came up with a good compromise where you can still wear some heavy armour at level 1 with the best carry capacity build but you'll be very close to 100% burden.

The reason why this group of stats specifically is important is because it is the main mechanic preventing you from wearing the heaviest armour in the game unless you build to it. I've said in the past that for a single player game balancing is not that important. This is one situation where the lack of balance has the potential to make the game boring. Neither of us wants that.

6. Fixed bugs and typos.

On top of some I found during one of my admittedly infrequent test days, I also found a fair few at the event in Wakefield in March. The more interesting ones were animations for burning and other afflictions persisting between fights and a much more serious one where the stamina and stagger de-buffs from afflictions weren't clearing up after defeat.

The first one was obviously not game breaking but it looked really janky and a bit scary if you didn't notice the affliction didn't do any damage to you.

The second one was a major problem and took a while to pinpoint because there are so many thing in the game that interact with stamina regeneration. When I found it I realised the affliction de-buff system was a bit barebones so I improved it as well.

So these were the MoonWard Demo patch notes for v0-9-59. Let me know what you think in the comments or on our Discord server!

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!