Resolve Revamp Update available!

Greetings Viceroys!

What comes after 7 and just before the Harpies Update? You’re right, it’s the 8th Early Access update! Here’s what’s new:

• Flat Resolve
• Player Profiles

The game is also 15% off on Epic Games Store and you can get an additional $10 discount with the Epic Coupon which now applies to all items in your cart.

Players who tested the features on the Experimental Branch should be well accustomed to the major new changes, but for you, we’ve got a special surprise: Experimental Harpies Update! More about that later.

I may sound like a broken record, but you can do us a great favor by rating Against the Storm on Metacritic.

Continue reading for developer notes and the full list of changes, or jump straight to the specific section:

• Developer Notes
• Experimental Harpies Update
• Changelog
• Suggestions Tool
• Community Corner
• Eremite Games Anniversary
• Your Support

DEVELOPER NOTES

In this update, we focus on cleaning up and improving one of the core systems in the game – Resolve. Its previous incarnation was functional but it was almost impossible to reliably predict how a given Resolve modifier would affect a species (both for the players as well as for us, the developers). We deemed this change necessary before introducing a new species. 

Talking of which – Harpies will be arriving in just two weeks, on February 17! And with them, a lot of balance changes, new buildings, goods, recipes, perks, changes to the embark system, and more! You can help us test the upcoming features on the Experimental Branch, where an early version of the Harpy Update will go live today (with placeholder assets to not spoil the fun).

How the Resolve worked

Until now, Resolve was a mix of a few concepts. In its most basic form, it was a number from 0 to 100 representing the well-being and will of a given species. There was also the “Resolve Change” parameter, which was a sum of all effects that impacted a given species: needs fulfilled, perks, weather effects, etc. The Resolve Change value determined whether Resolve was increasing or decreasing. 

To prevent constant fluctuations and a simple +1 modifier resulting in max Resolve, we introduced Stagnation. With its own set of complex rules, Stagnation was growing and decreasing together with the Resolve value. We achieved the effect we wanted, but at the cost of reduced readability. 

With all the differences between species, it was almost impossible to say how a simple Resolve Effect (for example the penalty from Fallen Human Explorers) would affect a given species. The system was incredibly hard to explain in detail (just look at the length of this section) and almost impossible to accurately play around with.

What we changed

From now on, Resolve will be a flat number. It will range from 0 to 50, and each species will start with a base value. With 10 base Resolve, Beavers under the influence of “Beaver Clan Support” (+3 to Beaver Resolve) will end up with 13 Resolve. 

Instead of unpredictable stagnation, there will be only 2 concepts to grasp: Current Resolve and Target Resolve. Current Resolve reflects the Resolve a given species currently has, and Target Resolve is the sum of all effects – in other words, the value that the Current Resolve will eventually reach over time. So in the previous example, Current Resolve would be 10 and the Target Resolve would be 13.

New species characteristics

Additionally, we also changed how species relate to Resolve. Previously, this entire aspect was not really well balanced and poorly explained. With this update, we introduce a set of traits/rules that describe each species:

• Trustful (base Resolve)
• Resilient (how fast the Resolve is reacting to change)
• Demanding (how much Resolve is needed to gain Reputation)
• Decadent (how far the Reputation bar is moving up after gaining a point)

That would make the species:

• Humans: Trustful with low resilience. Mildly demanding and mildly decadent.
• Beavers: Mildly trustful with low resilience. Very demanding, but not decadent.
• Lizards: Resilient, but distrustful. Non-demanding but very decadent.
• Harpies: Distrustful and not resilient. Non-demanding and not decadent.

With the positive stagnation gone and clear rules regarding each species’ relation to Resolve, there should be no clear “winners” and “losers”.

Characteristics Table

These traits aren’t currently mentioned in any in-game description, but with the next release, we will update the species’ tooltips accordingly.

EXPERIMENTAL HARPIES UPDATE

In the new Experimental Update (Early Access v0.17.1E) we are finally introducing the much-awaited Hapries! It’s the last stage before we release them onto the main branch on February 17 and there is still a lot of balancing and bug fixing to be done. We would greatly appreciate any feedback we can get from our awesome community.

CHANGELOG

Changes marked with ⚡ were inspired by the community.

New content and features

• ⚡ Revamped the entire Resolve System. It’s now based on flat values and should be easier to understand in general.
  • Each species has an initial Resolve value – so called Base Resolve. 
  • Resolve modifiers are now simply added to a Base Resolve value instead of being calculated with a complex equation. For example: Humans have a Base Resolve of 30. If you have two effects, one +2 and the other -5, the final Resolve for Humans will be: 30 + 2 – 5 = 27.
  • There are two basic values for a species: Current Resolve and Target Resolve. Current Resolve reflects the Resolve a species has, and Target Resolve is the value after adding all the Resolve modifiers. Current Resolve changes over time until it reaches Target Resolve.
  • Resolve now ranges from 0 to 50. Villagers will leave only if Current Resolve is equal to 0 or lower.
  • Every species now has a different set of characteristics related to Resolve:
    • Base Resolve value (Trustful)
    • Reaction speed to Resolve changes (Resilient)
    • Reputation generation rate (Demanding)
    • Reputation threshold change after gaining a point (Decadent)
  • Stagnation was removed.
  • Some Resolve sources have been rebalanced (more info about it in the “Balance” section of this changelog).
• ⚡ Added Player Profiles. You can now have up to 5 profiles on one machine, each with its own save files (both meta progression and settlement saves).
  • Player Profiles can be accessed in the Main Menu, in the top right corner of the screen.
  • Profiles are fully compatible with Cloud Saves. 
  • You can erase progress or remove a profile by clicking on the corresponding icons in the Profile Panel.
  • You can freely rename profiles by clicking on a profile name in the Profile Panel.
  • Settings (graphics, language, keybinds, etc.) are shared across all profiles. 

Player Profiles

Balance

• ⚡ Farmers will now transport goods to the Main Storage in Clearance.
• ⚡ Lowered the spawn rate of Insect Resource nodes in the Coral Forest.
• ⚡ Memory of the Forest’s Hostility value has been decreased to 50 (from 100).
• The Resolve penalty for the Storm has been decreased from -5 to -4. 
• Species-specific housing now gives +3 Resolve instead of +2.
• Resolve can now be negative. The lower the Resolve, the faster villagers will leave. Thresholds are at -5, -15, and -25 Resolve.
• Sacrificing Wood in the Hearth now costs 40 Wood per minute instead of 60. 
• Sacrificing Coal in the Hearth now costs 15 Coal per minute instead of 20.
• Sacrificing Oil in the Hearth now costs 15 Oil per minute instead of 20.
• Coal recipes were rebalanced: 
  • Coal (3 stars) production time reduced to 60 sec instead of 90 sec. 
  • Coal (2 stars) production time reduced to 90 sec instead of 120 sec.
  • Coal (1 stars) production time reduced to 90 sec instead of 120 sec.
• Villagers with high Resolve now generate Reputation slightly slower.
• Rebalanced the rate at which different species react to Resolve changes.

UI/UX improvements

• Added a new indicator for when villagers are leaving. Now after reaching 0 Resolve, a red bar next to the species portrait will start going down. If it reaches the bottom, a villager will leave. 
  • It’s also possible to see the exact amount of seconds left before someone leaves by hovering over the Resolve bar of a given species.
• The leaving indicator (a crossed red heart next to the Resolve Bar) is shown as soon as the Target Resolve is 0 or less.
• The “Low Resolve” notification will be displayed as soon as the Target Resolve is 0 or less. It will no longer be displayed if the Resolve won’t eventually reach the leaving threshold.
• Sounds and notifications of villagers leaving will be triggered as soon as someone decides to leave and starts moving to the nearest Storage.
• ⚡ Perks revealing information about undiscovered Glades now also show Glade Events.
• ⚡ Updated the “Unlocked Content” section in the Cycle Summary Panel. It now displays upgrades bought during a Cycle. Hovering over an Upgrade will reveal more information about it. 
• ⚡ Added a keybind option for opening the Recipe Panel ([T] by default).
• ⚡ Added a tooltip to the Recipe Panel button on the HUD.
• ⚡ Added a countdown to the next update in the Main Men, just below the “Play” button. There’s also now a tooltip explaining the update cycle of Against the Storm.
• ⚡ Updated the “Incompatible Save” message to give a bit more information on why saves need to be reset after some game updates.
• ⚡ Added new graphical settings to the options menu:
  • Motion Blur
  • Depth of Field
  • Chromatic Aberration
• Goods that are about to be transported back to the Main Storage are now visible in the Storage tab in the Building Panel (previously they would disappear from the UI as soon as a villager was about to get them). 
• The Reset Progress button was removed from the World Map Menu. The progress can now be cleared from the Player Profiles panel.

Next Update Timer

Bug fixes

• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Ancient Burial Grounds not spawning Blightrot.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Back to Nature perk not being applied to Greenhouses. 
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with buildings randomly being destroyed at the start of a game.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with global production limits breaking when they were set to large numbers.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with Daily Challenge towns being placed on top of World Map Modifiers.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with burn timers in the Hearth not being updated after a perk was applied. 
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the building preview panel not opening for the Workshop in the Citadel Upgrade screen. 
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the ruined Lizard House having a Human House model.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with Insect Resource Nodes appearing in the Royal Woodlands.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the Daily Challenge Button not being disabled after a Cycle ended.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with resource tooltips being stuck on screen after building a road over ore deposits.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with some glyphs missing in the Japanese version. 

Other

• ⚡ Added new Town names based on a recent Community Brainstorm. Thank you all for participating, and a special thank you to @Eep, for a gigantic list of original names. 
  • And when it comes to the rest of the brainstorm (Modifiers, Seeds), don’t worry, they will find their way into the game pretty soon with the already planned meta progression and world map overhaul.
• Villagers around the Hearth now no longer look in one direction after loading a save. 

We’re super grateful to everyone who contributed to this update and who tested the major changes on the Experimental Branch. You’re the best!

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.

COMMUNITY CORNER

Arbitrarius – one of the players from our Discord server – shared a bunch of screenshots from a successful attempt to colonize the entire map:

We are extremely impressed by the city’s design and the author’s creativity. We included one of Arbitrarius’ screenshots in this update’s cover.

EREMITE GAMES ANNIVERSARY

Happy birthday to… us! It’s been one year since we started working full-time on ‘Against the Storm’. Previously, the core team spent their evenings coding and designing the world in which it never stops raining. Did you know that in its first version, Codename Rainpunk was an isometric roguelite RPG?

Codename Rainpunk concept

Interesting times…

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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