Together in Battle Dev Log

[CraigStern]

-- the engine now supports degradation of all skill-granting equipment, regardless of whether it is equipped in the Weapon Hand!

-- skills now support skill tags! Under the new attribute skillTags, you can now create skill tags by delimiting the following values with commas: string stat name (e.g. Class); string stat value; operation; and thing to affect with that operation if the string stat value matches (Damage or Accuracy). Delimit individual skill tags with forward slashes.

-- Lockpicks no longer grant the ModDmgVsClass tag; instead, Pilfer itself now has the skill tag Class,Chest,+:50,Damage.

-- Lockpicks are now equipped to the Off Hand.

-- improved the sound effects and visual effects associated with Pilfer.

-- the recruitment interface now shows a character's salary using the aura symbol instead of displaying the word "aura."

-- restaurants are now a distinct hobby characters can get.

-- fixed: the game was sometimes having characters visit restaurants in town when it was trying to have them rest.

-- fixed: the ranged damage fall-off tutorial was still showing up in Battle at the Oasis even if you'd turned off tutorials.

-- fixed a range error that could occur in rare circumstances during processing of attack damage.

-- fixed: it was possible to skip over a cut scene by double-clicking very quickly at just the right moment.

-- fixed: sometimes you could click a character and the space selector would remain elsewhere.

[CraigStern]

-- new skill: Shove 2! Shoves the target 2 spaces instead of 1 at a cost of 4 energy.

Most melee classes have a chance to learn this skill, but Stone Golems are the best at it: they can use this ability for a mere 1 energy due to their immense size and strength.

-- the anim attribute for skills now supports alternative animations for skills that can be used by multiple classes without the same animation sets. Each animation to be used is delimited by a forward slash.

-- the recruitment tutorial now shows up automatically the first time you go to recruit characters in the main campaign.

-- fixed unwanted highlighting behaviors in the recruitment interface.

-- fixed compression settings on a few portraits.

-- fixed: it was possible to produce tooltips by mousing over units in the middle of attack sequences, thereby obscuring attack animations from view.

-- fixed an edge case where characters with both Shove and Cast could use the wrong animation.

[CraigStern]

-- changed minimum recruitment in the recruitment interface from a hard limit that prevents you from leaving to a warning pop-up that you can choose to ignore.

-- put a minimum of 6 on main campaign recruitment in case the player misses the recruiter's team size recommendation.

-- the level-up screen now announces it when a character has acquired a new ModSkill tag, informing the player which skill has improved and in what way.

-- added a bunch of new physical traits to the game, increased the importance of a handful of existing traits.

-- made the intro cut scene less needlessly verbose.

-- fixed: starting tags weren't being applied to proc gen characters.

-- fixed: the game threw a range error when units collided from a ranged pulling ability like Grapple Pull or Kinetic Pull.

-- fixed: status effect popups and environmental damage pop-ups were occurring at the start of a turn, prior to the turn box being cleared.

[CraigStern]

-- fixed: the map editor would prevent you from painting a bridge or other passable object onto the same space as an existing character.

-- fixed: pushing or pulling a unit onto a bridge would always result in falling damage regardless of the elevation change.

[CraigStern]

-- fixed: you could effectively freeze the game by attempting to test a new map within the map editor that you had not yet saved. The game now first checks to make sure that your map exists when you attempt to test it.

[CraigStern]

-- fixed the delay on displaying sparks and damage when skills smash characters into each other.

-- fixed an annoying visual glitch where characters traveling upwards across grass or flowers would render beneath the foliage.

[CraigStern]

-- edited the portrait shader to support glow effects for spirits, and for shadowling and spriggat eyes.

-- fixed a graphical issue with the large window background graphic.

-- fixed: the dark colored portion of the spriggat horn images was slightly miscolored, leading to palette swapping errors in spriggat portraits.

-- fixed: recruiting a spirit could cause the game to throw a null error.

[CraigStern]

-- character portraits now bob when moving during cut scenes to give the illusion of walking (as opposed to smoothly gliding from spot to spot).

-- the game now supports mid-battle saving with proc gen maps.

-- fixed: certain dialogue was being chosen too prevalently during character creation.

-- fixed: text was inappropriately overlaying other graphical elements.

-- fixed: status effects were inappropriately overlaying other graphical elements.

[CraigStern]

-- character portrait bob no longer occurs for spirits and shadowlings, which glide through the air as normal.

-- character portrait bob is now accompanied by footstep sound effects synced to the animation.

-- improved the visual effects for Solid State Shield, Static Shield and Juxtapose.

-- fixed: Static Shield tooltip didn't display correct icon.

-- fixed: Juxtapose would sometimes swap the wrong character.

-- fixed the timing on Shadowport sound effects.

-- fixed the kerning on some tooltip titles in the recruitment screen.

[CraigStern]

-- recorded new sound effects for Smash, Juxtapose, Mind Control, Possess, Throw Voice, and Terror.

-- updated sound effects for Soul Suck and Douse.

-- fixed: character sort order could be put out of whack by teleportation effects like Shadowport and Juxtapose.

-- fixed: attack sequences could conclude prematurely when smashing an enemy capable of counterattacking into something else via a knockback attack.

[CraigStern]

-- created a new, more fitting skill button graphic for Juxtapose.

-- fleshed out more of the faith traditions in Cera Bella.

-- added more explicit references to a character's patron deity in religious dialogue.

[CraigStern]

-- improved the knockback timing on Smash.

-- improved the visual effects on Pyro Hail.

-- fixed: offset data for TowardCenter visual effects was only affecting the spawn location of the effects, not its travel target.

-- fixed: playing a custom campaign, quitting to the title screen, and then visiting the campaign editor would cause the editor to auto-load that campaign.

-- fixed bug: the game was not properly assigning promotion levels to procedurally generated characters, leading to incorrect stats (and a displayed level somewhere in the negatives).

[CraigStern]

-- created a new animated projectile for Pyro Hail.

-- got visual effects for Pyro Hail synced up and working in-game.

-- got visual effects for Light Bomb synced up and working in-game.

-- catalogued the game's visual effects in Assetnames.xml along with an attribute denoting whether each is directional or not.

-- fixed a serious visual glitch with text in item tooltips.

[CraigStern]

-- moved the visual effects catalogue out of Assetnames.xml and into its own VisualEffects.xml file; added an attribute glowColor with a custom value for each visual effect.

-- the game now pulls directionality out of the XML file; there is no longer a need to add "Dir" to the end of directional VFX in Attacks.xml.

-- VFX glow now renders based on the glowColor set for each VFX in VisualEffects.xml. Certain effects (e.g. Light attacks) have really high glow, others (e.g. arrows, crossbow bolts, and throwing axes) have none at all.

-- fixed: a misnamed loop variable deep in the damage-processing code could sometimes cause the game to throw a range error on AOE attacks.

-- fixed a visual glitch in the level-up screen.

[CraigStern]

-- turned off random nose size variance in the character portrait generator for the time being. (It was sometimes causing noses to not align correctly with faces, and its contribution to character variety was minimal anyway.)

-- improved the coloring and glow setting on the victory fireworks after battle.

-- improved sequential visual effects timing.

-- fixed some text overlay issues in the UI.

-- fixed some 2D particle velocity settings that were no longer working quite right in the new canvas screen space.

-- fixed eye/nose placement data on certain human proc gen portraits.