Greetings, Adventurers! Hold on to your land boats, we have a ton of new content heading your way very soon! While more will be revealed in the coming weeks, our focus over the past months has been to improve network stability for all For The King II players. From today, we are opening an “Experimental Branch” that will allow anyone to try out the new features we’ve been working on to improve your multiplayer experience… and get a little musical taste as part of a larger content drop we can’t wait to reveal! Please note these new features are not live yet on the default version of the game and will only be accessible to those playing in the Experimental Branch. You will find below more details on the content of this branch and how to try out these new features first. We are immensely grateful for the support we have received from our community, and with the help of the Experimental Branch players we are hoping to release those multiplayer feature improvements for everyone as soon as possible. Gather the masses, venture forth, let’s take this show on the road. [h3][b]NEW MULTIPLAYER FEATURES AND BARDS![/b][/h3] To improve our network stability we have improvements in three areas. First, we have reduced the amount of data we are sending. This will improve reliable connections as well as reduce the potential for a disconnect. We have also implemented two new key features to improve the reconnection experience: Auto-reconnect and Join-in Progress. More details on these areas below. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42430794/0da497825b09d8c636b68fb1e4f30d4f194e7df7.png[/img] While we have been improving our networking, we’ve also been hard at work on new content that we cannot wait to roll out for everyone. On this Experimental Branch, you will also have access to both Bards, the Minstrel and the Busker. To help flaunt your musical prowess across the lands of Fahrul Bards, we’ve also unlocked all adventures and various Lore Store content. Hopefully, this allows everyone to jump into any mission, with any party, and really help test out these network improvements. [i][b]Other changes on the Experimental Branch:[/b][/i] [b]New Weapons [/b] What is a Bard without an instrument? With the addition of the Busker and the Minstrel comes the addition of a wide variety of playable lutes. We’ve also added new sets of full armour ranges, as well as new trinkets. [b]Improved Loot Drops [/b] We’ve heard frequent feedback that it can be frustrating to not always get weapon drops that match your party composition. We’ve made a few adjustments that will now have loot drops detect if your party has appropriate weapons based on their class. The rate of detection will vary across the various difficulties but you will now have a much easier time finding a wand for your Scholar or a better bow for your Hunter. [b]Dungeons! [/b] Dungeons are in a state of renovation (wink, wink) so you may see a few changes across all dungeon situations. One highly notable area is the Dungeon Timeline. The Dungeon Timeline now shows off a bit more detail - both in colour, as well as in description. [b]Difficulty Settings [/b] This one is worth noting as it is a stark visual change. No changes to the actual difficulty settings themselves, but we have moved the custom rules into a slide out to improve the visual layout during adventure selection. [b]UX/UI [/b] There are various visual changes on the Experimental Branch, from new icons, subtle shifts, etc. We’ll have a full list of these changes when we release the update publicly. [b]Lore Store [/b] We’ve removed the “Items” tab from the Lore Store. This contained the weapon families for certain weapons. These were in the Lore Store and intended to be a feel-good unlock that added to the player's experience. That hasn’t translated to the game in the ways we expected and has caused confusion with regard to weapons. The previously locked weapons are now part of the loot pool by default. When these changes go live, anyone that used Lore to purchase the weapon families will have their Lore refunded. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42430794/855f4a7e6bb8077b872ac5c1e393306086d63452.png[/img] [h3][b]EXPERIMENTAL BRANCH INFORMATION [/b][/h3] This is an Experimental Branch and you will encounter some bugs you have not seen before. You may even see some areas that are a work-in-progress. For example, the Bards may not have all of their audio cues hooked up. If you do come across any issues you can report them by pressing F1 within the game. Please note that these bugs are not a representation of final gameplay, and the purpose of this branch is to test the new network features we have added to the game. [b]To ensure we can gather this information, please head into your game and navigate to Settings > Gameplay > Ensure ‘Allow Data Sharing’ is turned on. [/b] [h3][b]HOW DO I ACCESS THE EXPERIMENTAL BRANCH? [/b][/h3] [list] [*] Open Steam [*] Right click on ‘For the King II’ in your Library and select the ‘Properties’ option [*] Choose the ‘experimental’ branch from the ‘Beta Participation’ dropdown menu [*] Your Steam client will then start downloading the new branch [*] Once finished downloading, launch the game [/list] [b]New Feature: Auto-Reconnect[/b] We’ve implemented a system that will attempt to automatically reconnect players that get disconnected from their session. If a player drops out of the session due to loss of connection, the game will attempt to reconnect them within a 30-second window. Players will now be able to reconnect seamlessly if rejoining within 30 seconds. If a client rejoins after a crash, quitting the game or timing out on a reconnect, the host is informed with a party management pop-up that will allow them to reassign characters back to the player that disconnected. [b]New Feature: Join In Progress[/b] Players now can join an adventure that is already in progress. This means you can join friends who have started an adventure already or rejoin a game if you were disconnected from the session. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42430794/855f4a7e6bb8077b872ac5c1e393306086d63452.png[/img] [h3][b]FAQs[/b][/h3] [b]What’s the difference between client and host and how does that affect reconnects? [/b] If any player disconnects, including the host, they will trigger the auto-reconnect feature and the game will attempt to rejoin them to the session. If the host is unable to reconnect, all players will be disconnected, and all players will have to rejoin the adventure. [b]What happens if I encounter a bug while playing? [/b] If you experience any form of bug, could you please ensure you press the F1 button and submit a bug report to us. This will provide us with all the pertinent information and data we need to resolve the issues, please provide as much detail as possible! [b]How long will the test last on the Experimental Branch? [/b] The test will last for at least one week, we may increase this depending on the amount of data gathered to ensure we can properly identify the most important fixes. [b]Will I be able to play with friends who aren't on the experimental branch?[/b] Yes you can! To do so they will need to join the Experimental Branch as well. Anyone can join by following the steps above. All game sessions must be done on the same branch/version. You may see other game sessions in the lobby menu. Any attempt to join games from the main application will result in a version mismatch prompt. [b]Will I be able to keep my save data?[/b] No, the Experimental Branch is kept separate from the main application. This is to make sure that any time and hard work you have put into the main application isn’t deleted by joining any optional branches. [b]Why have my game settings not carried over to this branch?[/b] Each branch should be treated as a fresh save or a new game, this does, unfortunately, mean your settings from the live game will not be carried over and you may need to do some manual adjustments. [b]Will all of these new features be added to the main application?[/b] Yes! Everything contained on the Experimental Branch will eventually come to the main application. The goal of this branch is to ensure that we are making meaningful improvements without disrupting the main application and player’s current progress. Thank you for your continued support! 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