Together in Battle Dev Log

[CraigStern]

- added a little glinting animation to the "next set of options" buttons in dialogue and the town menu to make them harder to miss.

- increased the base chance for Stunned to take effect via Mind Shock to 75%, making mentalists more reliable at lower levels (and making the Thoughteater promotion option more appealing).

- buffed Disarm: the skill now costs 2 energy instead of 4 and allows the user to move after using.

- characters can now continue moving after using Twirl.

- boosted the strength of experience scaling when attacking a lower-level opponent by 5% per level of difference to help keep characters within the correct level range.

- fixed: it was possible for the game to schedule a league match on the same day as the Manbir's Letter event, preventing that event from ever occurring.

- fixed: the "Leave" option on branch 0 at the Caravaneer's Guild simply reset the dialogue to branch 0 instead of returning the player to the middle of town.

- fixed: town menu "next set of options" buttons were using an outdated arrow graphic.

- fixed: the "coins" sound effect did not play when paying money in certain random events.

- fixed a typo in one of the narration variations for when no one cleans camp but no mess is left behind.

[CraigStern]

- interrogating Prince Ajit now schedules an event where the player receives a letter with a lead.

[CraigStern]

- began creating the first investigation mission.

- new unit tag supported: Inactive. Causes the AI to skip the unit's turn each round while the tag remains. (The only action a character tagged Inactive will take is to swim back to land if in water or lava.)

- fixed: shopkeeper portrait wasn't showing up when reacting to the restoration of steel weapons and armor to the shop.


More campaign editor changes:

- when auditioning music tracks within the map or cut scene editors, if music volume is set to 0, the game will now override this setting so you can hear the music in this one context.

- changing the operation for a bridge's Elev tag now updates its elevation in real-time in the editor.

- improved Guide documentation for the -NPC:Attribute Type|X- special character.

- fixed incomplete Guide documentation for the AggroGroup script action.

- fixed: particularly long topics in the Guide could overflow their text fields.

- fixed: when editing a branch in the dialogue editor, swapping action positions on the second page of actions was not functioning properly.

- fixed: in the dialogue editor, a range error could occur when changing the trigger for dialogue and then making further changes.

[CraigStern]

- finished the core part of battle portion of the first investigation mission.

- new script action: EndUnitTurn. Lets you forcibly end the named character's turn.

- fixed: Passive units could move to different locations as part of purely self-buffing moves.

[CraigStern]

- finished polishing up the Dissident's Den battle.

- created the interrogation scene following the Dissident's Den battle.

- fixed: the AreaPreference tag could cause AI-controlled units to inappropriately value moves where they move into the preferred area and then attack allies. The AI now detects when that is going to happen and discards the attack portion of such moves.

- fixed: if a character had multiple counterattack types to respond to an attack, they would queue up a counterattack with each of them instead of just one.

- fixed: the game was not taking weapon dependencies into account when determining viable skills to use for counterattacks (e.g. a character with a Bayonet counterattack would be able to use it even if not equipped with a crossbow).

- fixed: character names in camp interaction narrations would sometimes use the other character's nickname for that character instead of spelling out the character's full name.

[CraigStern]

- further increased character tendency to interact with existing friends and romantic partners.

- you can now always look ahead to the next month when in the calendar screen.

- new skill added: Unlock Door. Range 1; unlocks a locked door.

- Lockpicks now grant Unlock Door in addition to Pilfer.

- fixed a typo in the Skill Question evening event that would fail to exclude characters from the event who had only one skill remaining in their progression.

- fixed: if a map's music was changed mid-fight and a character promoted, the game would cross-fade back to the level's original music, not the track it was previously changed to.

- fixed: pushing enemies into lit campfires did not burn them unless it was specifically scripted for that map.

[CraigStern]

Changes for version 0.4.02:

- reduced the levels of several enemies in the Monkey League Qualifier (particularly the stone golem and axefighter) to make the fight less of a difficulty spike.

- items can now alter a character's base stats, allowing for permanent changes.

- new item: Salubrious Draught. One use; permanently increases the user's maximum health by 3.

- added an explanation for how to alter base stats to the Guide's Stats page.

[CraigStern]

- the initial qualifier bout is now skippable directly from the arena entryway if you've played through the tutorial fights (or skipped them) in a prior run, in which case the game will turn tutorials off and throw you right into the first fight (against the team with engineers).

- reduced the familiarity requirements for certain dialogue variations, making more varied character dialogue available earlier on.

- reduced the friendship threshold for characters with certain personality traits to give other characters nicknames, share secrets, and teach skills.

- added a new negative Talk interaction for characters who have a bad relationship.

[CraigStern]

Spent today's dev time improving the store page for Together in Battle, recutting the early access trailer to less than half its original length, reworking the small capsule to improve visibility in Steam's various lists, and uploading new screenshots. Annoying, but necessary.

[CraigStern]

- if you ignore Manbir Raksha's message, it is now possible to visit the palace at a later time to initiate the palace intrigue plot line. (Getting kicked out of the palace will still close it off forever, however.)

- improved awkward phrasing in some life skill-related dialogue variants.

- in camp, the game now warns you if camp is messy.

- removed a substantially duplicative reply option from the cut scene with the maharaja.

- new optional parameter for ClearPortraits; add any number of portrait reference names as parameters to have the game exempt them from being cleared.

- new special character supported: -PROJ:X-. In place of the 'X', type the name of an existing group project. Gets replaced with the numerical progress level of that group project (or zero, if no such project has been initiated).

- fixed an irritating visual glitch where a character's portrait would vanish for just a moment in between a camp narration and subsequent dialogue (e.g. when a character comes up to the player to ask if they'd like to give them money to gamble with).

- fixed: the Investigate button would not appear, grayed out, in the town menu during days with a league match scheduled.

- fixed: much of Gurdeep and the maharaja's dialogue during the Festival of the Ascendant Lights was missing babble sounds.

[CraigStern]

- improved Shadowling Grandpa's scaling to help keep up with enemy level scaling in the "save grandpa" random event.

- increased Grape Shot energy cost from 7 to 9 and decreased its damage scaling from 120% to 100% of strength.

- replaced the Thoughteater's flat +6 damage for Mind Shock with a 125% damage bonus, causing it to scale with Psy growth at the same rate as Mind Blast.

- replaced the Thoughteater's -1 energy cost reduction for Mind Shock with a +50 accuracy bonus, giving the skill's Stunned status a base 100% chance of taking effect.

- refactored some of the old portrait code to make it easier to modify the elements portraits are created from.

- fixed: one of the snow-sand transition tiles was missing.

- fixed: the ModSkillPower and ModSkillAccuracy tags were affecting skills unrelated to those tagged.

- fixed: the ModSkillRange tag could increase the range of skills with a max range of 0 (such as Whirlwind), leading to strange outcomes (such as potentially hitting oneself with Whirlwind).

- fixed: certain Duoterre weapons still required "brittle" masteries that appeared in Telepath Tactics Liberated, but which are not used in Together in Battle.

- fixed: the player's chosen death rules were being ignored by the golem attack random event.

- fixed: it was possible to get the event with Sita and the card game more than once.

- fixed: it was possible (albeit unlikely) for golems and spirits to have a morale-based reaction to teammate deaths.

- fixed: Stone Golems were not using the correct animation for Hurl.

- fixed: if a character's sibling appeared in an arena fight and they were killed without being recruited, the game would not save their data, leading to the character feeling depressed about "-MOODCHAR-" in subsequent scenes.

- fixed: wounded characters could still use items in their character screens.

- fixed: unequipping certain weapons (or having them forcibly unequipped via Disarmed status) could sometimes cause a dictionary error and freeze the game.

- updated documentation with explanation for how to make a ModSkill tag affect all skills.

[CraigStern]

- adjusted the positioning of the spike trap holes so they no longer hang over the edge on transition tiles.

- non-scar, non-facial-hair accessories in character portraits now support a "glow" value independent of the rest of the portrait.

- fixed: hair accessories in character portraits were being tinted with lightness values intended for character hair itself, resulting in accessories in light-colored hair appearing much too bright.

- fixed: save slots for playthroughs on custom difficulty did not display the player's team name in the top-right.

[CraigStern]

- cut scene backgrounds now support HDR colors, allowing for parts of it to appear to properly glow.

- it is now possible to get random events at the start of the day, not just in the arena or in the evening.

- new event: Heat Wave. Drains most of remaining unit energy and risks making units sick if they are assigned physically demanding tasks during the day.

- new skill: Kinetic Surge. 3 knockback, hits 3 spaces in a row.

- buffed the kineticist promoted classes: (1) The Kinetokurios no longer gets an energy cost reduction on Kinetic Constriction, but now gets +5 damage on Kinetic Constriction and can impart Weakened status with it; (2) the Puppetmaster no longer gets an energy cost reduction on Kinetic Gust and Kinetic Pull, but now gets guaranteed access to Kinetic Wave and learns Kinetic Surge as well.

- new mathematical operation supported for the SetVal script action: mod. This runs a modulo operation, dividing the current value by the operand and returning the remainder. (For instance: if a custom value is currently set to 7 and you use mod:4, the result will be 3 since that is the whole number remainder from dividing 7 by 4.)

- when used in battle, UnitsToList now adds generic characters by their unique ID instead of by name, allowing it to pinpoint specific instances of generic units sharing the same name.

- fixed: the game ceased giving payday reminders after the first in-game month.

- fixed: AI-controlled units moving a single space out of fog of war would not become visible.

- fixed a typo in one of the Suave heal barks.

[CraigStern]

- after the first two in-game months, the game now automatically adds negative events to the "random event hopper" every week in perpetuity, keeping random events from ever running out and putting pressure on the player to wrap up the playthrough.

- a character's background dialogue (where a character came from, what their family was like, etc.) now cannot repeat even if the listener hasn't heard it before.

- characters now progress from sharing background and "like" dialogue to nicknaming each other, sharing secrets, and teaching each other skills faster.

- boosted the likelihood of characters to interact with existing friends a bit more still.

- new rare item: Protein Pellets. Permanently increases a character's Strength by 1.

- fixed: status effect icon tooltips weren't being layered correctly.

- fixed: the "remove" button for armies within the map editor's army sub-editor inappropriately appeared above the tooltip explaining different AI profiles.

[CraigStern]

- new event: Dance Lessons! You can pay to send two characters off for dance lessons, improving their relationship and teaching them each Twirl.

- the game now previews where collisions are going to occur due to knockback skills and predicts the damage that targeted units are going to take from those collisions.

- there is now a 1% chance of either a Salubrious Draught or Protein Pellets showing up in the shop during any given visit.

- there is now a 100% chance of either a Salubrious Draught or Protein Pellets showing up in the wandering merchant's shop after saving him from the bandits.

- added portrait movement to the start of the Item Sale event.

- new special character supported: -DATE-. Spells out the current date with the day of the month, the month name, and the current year.

- commas no longer break the text within letters and other documents displayed via the ShowReport script action.

- fixed: the refactored activity-partner selection algorithm had broken instances where random events forced certain camp activity partners.