Greetings Viceroys!

In the 11th Update, we’re making the first steps towards revamping the meta-progression layer in Against the Storm. Here’s what’s new:

• Upgrades revamp
• Scaling challenges
• And more!

Once you give it a try, let us know what you think!

And if you like the changes, you can do us a great favor by rating the game on Metacritic.

Continue reading for our update notes, or jump straight into the changelog:

• Developer Notes
• Changelog
• Suggestions Tool

DEVELOPER NOTES

With this newest update, we begin the Phase of the Citadel. For the next months, we will be taking on the monumental task of reimagining the entire meta progression layer of Against the Storm (you can read more about it in our Roadmap). Today’s update is just the first step. The whole revamp is a gigantic topic, as it includes the World Map, the upgrade tree, Deeds, Modifiers, resource sinks, new challenging content, Cycles, Factions, Trade Routes, and much, much more.

As the Update’s name suggests, the first topic we’re tackling is the game’s progression, and how you unlock the content. A major piece of feedback we received was that upgrades in the Citadel don’t really feel like… upgrades. Many of you even asked to be able to turn off certain unlocks, to not dilute the pool of blueprint choices too much. From our perspective, there are two separate problems here: 

1. Some buildings are just less attractive than others (also the RNG doesn’t help here).
2. We’re mixing two different concepts in one “progression tree”: new content, and power-ups.

As with everything, there isn’t one simple solution to the problems mentioned above, so we decided to take it one step at a time. 

From now on, the Upgrade Tree in the Citadel will only contain permanent power-ups (more Blueprint and Cornerstone choices, Trade Route limit increases, Trader price reductions, etc.), and everything that is considered content (new buildings, perks, traders, playable species) will be unlocked automatically when leveling up. 

This will allow us to have a more clear picture of what players have available at a given level, and thus make it easier to work with the second issue mentioned above: the RNG, and the viability of certain buildings and recipes. We’re constantly adjusting the Blueprint rates and recipe layouts (plus, in this update, we added some Blueprints as Embark Bonuses), so hopefully, things will improve over time.

Building Blueprints in Embark Bonuses panel

Important Note: we know that some of you asked for a way to pick Blueprints before a run begins (or “ban” certain choices from appearing during a playthrough). While we get why this would be useful, we are also very reluctant to make such a big change to Against the Storm at this point. In our view, it would go against one of the main principles of the game – making the best with the hand you’re dealt. So for now, we want to work on the RNG and try to find a good middle ground where getting bad rolls is less frustrating. 

But wait, there’s more! We also added a new difficulty scaling system for Glade Events and expanded the in-game Help panel. It turned into a fully-fledged Atlas with information about Buildings, Perks, Traders, and playable Species. 

Atlas

We hope you enjoy the new additions to Against the Storm, and as always, feel free to share your feedback on our Discord server or using the official feedback tool.

CHANGELOG

Changes marked with ⚡ were inspired by community.

Revamped Upgrade Tree

New content and features

• ⚡ Completely revamped leveling and the Upgrade Tree in the Smoldering City. 
• Raised the level cap from 12 to 15. 
• All building/perk/trader/species unlocks were moved from the Upgrade Tree to leveling rewards.
• There are now 65 upgrades in the Citadel (previously there were 47), and all of them are permanent power-ups or player capability expansions.
• The only requirement for unlocking a new row of Upgrades in the Citadel is the player’s level. You no longer have to buy X lower-level Upgrades to progress through the Upgrade Tree.
• To buy a Citadel Upgrade, you must first purchase the previous level of said upgrade.
• New Embark Bonuses are no longer unlocked when leveling up and can instead be bought in the Citadel as upgrades. 
• Added 19 completely new types of permanent Upgrades:
• Impatience speed reduction
• Fuel-burning time increase
• Bonus yield chance increase
• Additional node charges
• Villager speed increase
• Production speed increase
• Trader arrival time reduction
• More Blueprints/Cornerstones slots in the Trade Panel
• Lower Trader prices
• Embark Bonuses – goods, perks, blueprints
• More goods from Embark Bonuses
• More Citadel Resources from settlements
• Grace Period extension
• Cornerstone Rerolls
• Sacrifice cost reduction
• Farming speed increase
• Additional Fertile Soil
• Construction speed increase
• More newcomer goods
• The full list of upgrades in the Citadel right now:

• • Level rewards:

• ⚡ The “Help” panel found in the in-game menu [ESC] is now a fully-fledged Atlas.
• Added a “Buildings” tab with a full list of all buildings in the game. It contains information about recipes, special effects, building cost, building time, worker slots, etc.
• Added a “Cornerstones” tab with a full list of all perks in the game. Selecting a perk will show its icon and a description of its effect.
• Added a “Traders” tab with a full list of all traders in the game. Selecting a trader will show their portrait and a short description. 
• Added a “Species” tab with a full list of all playable species. It contains information about their characteristics, needs, and stats.
• Content locked by the player’s level or Deeds is also locked in the Atlas. Only unlocked buildings/perks/traders/species can be viewed.
• ⚡ Added a new mechanic called the “Grace Period” (unlocked via Citadel Upgrade). Upon reaching 12 Impatience Points, the player is given a short amount of time to try and save the settlement and lower Impatience.
• ⚡ Added the option to reroll Cornerstones a limited amount of times during a settlement run. This mechanic is unlocked via a Citadel Upgrade (one charge per run, the second reroll charge is added after buying another upgrade).
• Added two new Orders: Bloody Sacrifices and Happy Brewing.

‘Grace Period’ mechanic

Balance

• ⚡ Added a new difficulty scaling system for Glade Events.
  • All Events are scaled based on the map’s difficulty level. 
  • Depending on the event, different parameters will be scaled: required resources, working time, the Working Effect’s intensity, or time before consequences occur. 
  • As a general rule: 
    • Events without Working Effects scale based on required resources and time before the consequence occurs. 
    • Events with a Working Effect scale based on working time and the Working Effect’s intensity. 
    • Events in Forbidden Glades scale based on all parameters other than time to consequence.
  • How the new difficulty will be distributed:
    • Normal: all events will be easier than before.
    • Hard: the difficulty was tuned to be the same as before.
    • Very Hard: all events will be harder than before.
    • Impossible: good luck.
• ⚡ Increased the chances of a Homestead spawning in Dangerous and Forbidden Glades. 
• ⚡ Adjusted the spawn rates of most Glade Events (especially Rain Spirit Totem, Open Vault, Caravans) to ensure a more even and varied distribution. 
• Significantly increased the rewards for Orders requiring the player to build two different buildings in a chain (like a Brewery and Tavern). These are: Liquid Luck, Religious Rites, Arena, Bathing, Cups & Glasses.
• Increased the max rate at which fuel can burn. Previously, there was a hard cap at 200% to prevent a death spiral when too many fuel consumption effects were stacked. The limit was now increased to 350%. 
• Because of the fuel consumption limit changes, some effects (Forest Mysteries and Glade Events) were adjusted:
  • Piercing Winds now increases fuel consumption by 200% instead of 250%.
  • Humid Climate now increases fuel consumption by 25% instead of 30%.
  • Wildfire Presence now increases fuel consumption by 150/200/250/300% (based on difficulty) instead of 400%.
• Added a reward of 5 Planks to the Brewing Ale Order in the tutorial.
• Increased the chances for a Stonewood Infestation modifier to spawn in the first Phase of the World Map.

Game Result screen

UI/UX improvements

• ⚡ Added an amount indicator below the effect icon to some Resolve modifiers in Glade Events (for example Giant Beast and Ominous Whispers).
• ⚡ Added a warning thunder sound near the end of the Clearance to warn players of the coming Storm.
• ⚡ Updated the Game Result screen to more accurately display information. There are now dedicated sections for rewards, unlocks and completed Deeds.
• Added a “Level Up” popup window which displays content unlocked by reaching a specific level.
• Upgrades selected in the Upgrade Tree are now marked with a glowing outline to help with navigation. 
• Clicking on the Magnifying Glass icon next to a Blueprint will now open up the Atlas one the corresponding building page.

Level Up window

Bug fixes

• ⚡ Fixed a bug with Cornerstones sometimes being incorrectly reshuffled.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Reputation Threshold being higher than maximum Resolve.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Hostility lowering sound not playing when the game is paused.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Forced Sacrifice effect listing Crystalized Dew when describing the removal of the player’s trade goods. 
• Fixed a bug with the Rain Collector becoming idle all on its own.
• Fixed a bug with an incorrect highlight when hovering over the “Cancel” button in the Glade Event Panel.
• Fixed a bug with tooltips describing a villager’s actions intersecting incorrectly with Proficiency the tooltip.
• Fixed an issue with the Lightning Catcher’s animation not being played automatically.
• Fixed an issue with the Mine’s animation not playing correctly. 
• Fixed a few spelling mistakes in the Polish localization.
• Changed all instances of “nœud” to “dépôt” in the French localization.

Other

• Each tree type now has a new and distinct chopping and falling sound. 
• Increased the game’s overall performance in the Marshlands biome.

We’re super grateful to everyone who contributed to this update. Your translations, suggestions, and reports are extremely appreciated!

Please make sure to update the game. Also, you can always track the progress of reported issues on our Public Bug Tracker.

SUGGESTIONS TOOL

If you want to request new features or suggest changes to the existing ones, please use our new suggestions tool.

Suggestions Tool

Posting suggestions is easy:

1. Go to feedback.eremitegames.com/
2. Login or use anonymously
3. Make sure your suggestion hasn’t been posted already
4. Start typing in the Create Post panel on the right
5. Submit

Make sure to vote on other players’ ideas as well to help us identify their priority. We treat it as the main source of information for the purpose of planning new content.

Please continue to report bugs via the in-game Reporting Tool or on our Discord and Reddit.

SHOW YOUR SUPPORT

If you want to help us grow the Against the Storm community, there are a few things you can do:

• Let your friends know about the game
• Share our content and announcements on social media
• Share your gameplays on relevant subreddits like r/Games or r/PCGaming 

Truth be told, we appreciate all kinds of support. Be it feedback, words of encouragement, or casual activity on Discord. It helps a lot and we’re very much grateful!

Now, enjoy the new update and let us know what you think!

May the storm be gentle on you,
Eremite Games team

Current Early Access version: 0.28.1R

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