Hello, Merchants! We have been rather silent and the patches have slowed recently, but we wanted to let everyone know that we are absolutely still here and working on The Merchant’s Guide to the Kingdom. In that light we wanted to provide an update and more details on the what and why of what’s been going on. First and foremost, we have a few major changes coming to the game at or before the v1.0 launch, but because they generally all work together, we can’t release one at a time like we usually strive to, otherwise the game would be…ridiculous. As an example, one feature we are working on is Difficulty selection. Easy, Normal, Hard and Very Hard. Sounds simple enough, right? Just change how difficult things are! Well, not so much. We also have major plans for an ability rework, as well as many item additions. So with that in mind, yes, we could work on the balance of these difficulty modes, release it, and it would probably be just fine for a while. However, that would mean that once we move on to and finish the ability rework, the next big feature, we’d have to go back and fully rebalance the difficulty settings again to coincide with the ability changes which would include many more hours of balance testing. As some may know, we are currently just two devs actively working on this game, and since things like full balance of the game takes many, many hours from each of us to try our best to get things right, we have to do everything we can to be as efficient as possible, and for that reason we have to avoid backing ourselves into the corner of having to fully revamp the difficulty balancing multiple times as we add more features which dramatically impact it. In short, instead of just releasing the Difficulty modes, and then releasing the ability rework, and then releasing more items which are tied to abilities which also impact difficulties and balance, and then adding the end game features which impact all of those things, we find ourselves having to work on all of these alongside each other to avoid having to essentially re-do each feature as we release the next feature. All that said, we are sorry for not keeping up on the updates as we used to! We love being able to release new and exciting systems to the game on a more consistent schedule, but rest assured, we are still here and we are still going! Once we get v1.0 launched and in your hands, we fully plan to go back to a cadence of regular feature releases. We have some extremely major and long term plans for The Merchant’s Guide to the Kingdom, not only going into v1.0 launch, but long after as well. We will still be releasing patches as we fix things, add things that we think can work in a standalone patch, and continue to do additional tuning, but all the while we are working on one giant patch for v1.0. So here are some quick updates on a few things happening right now behind the scenes! [b]Difficulty Settings[/b] We have been testing the difficulty settings on the beta build, which is live for anyone to try! But keep in mind, this is a very different state than it will be when the abilities hit as well, however, the spirit of the modes will remain the same. Currently, we are testing 4 difficulty settings. Easy, Normal, Hard and Very Hard. They are mostly self explanatory, but we want to express that anyone brave enough to venture into Very Hard, even after the ability rework and new items, should be ready for...well…a Very Hard game! We’ve talked about changing the name to “Masochist” mode, as it provides a challenge that requires near perfection and full knowledge of the game, and even then it is quite punishing. Very Hard is really meant for those chasing that nearly impossible dream. Though as insane as it may feel, rest assured, we made clever use of internal coding mechanics to ensure that the game is in fact able to be beaten on Very Hard! But we expect less than 1% of players will be able to conquer the game on Very Hard - Hardcore mode. On the flip side, Easy mode is meant to be a lot more relaxed to the point where you can likely just put everything on Free Roam mode and just watch your realm play itself for most of the game. And, of course, Normal and Hard modes are the offsets in the middle. [b]Ability Rework[/b] Just today we finished the full list of the new abilities for each of the classes and their specializations. Literally, the final note was made right before I started writing this State of the Game! This is not only a rework on abilities, but an addition of many abilities as well. Each hero specialization will have 4 abilities to start with once we are done with this, and they will be a lot more defined and built around the role that specialization is expected to play within a group. Of course, some specializations will be better suited to certain things than others, but the perfect group will require a proper mix and strategy going into some of the more difficult content in the game. That said, we don’t want to bottleneck you into having to choose specific compositions for specific challenges. We have plans to add in a system or two which will allow you to modify and alter all of these abilities to really mold your officers into what you want them to be. More on that soon! [b]Endgame[/b] Along with an entirely new zone, The Shimmering Isles, there will be much more challenging progress for you to make when we launch v1.0. Many of the factors involved with it are still in development, so we don’t have anything to reveal quite yet, but we are extremely excited to fully show everything we have planned! These features will include many different ways for you to gain power, and fight much more difficult content, should you choose to do so, extending your available game play content by many, many hours. [b]Unique Items[/b] Unique items will be potentially very powerful and build defining items which will help you face the coming dangers. There are many Unique items coming to the game we want you to discover and build around, however, we have a few quick examples below. [u]Speedrunners - Lower/Boots[/u] The wearers magic find is increased by [400-500%] in dungeons, but drops by [1-5%] overall each second they remain in the dungeon until reaching 0% overall Magic Find. Flavor Text: "Good things come to those who go as fast as they possibly can." [u]The Jester’s Folly - Accessory/Ring[/u] Always rolls 4 primary & 4 secondary affixes, but all stat rolls range from -100% to +200% of the appropriate tier where the item was found. Flavor Text: "A fool thinks not of consequence." [u]Taste of Blood - Weapon/2H Axe[/u] Your overall attack speed has a [20-40%] chance to increase by 25% per hit, and a [20-40%] chance to reset back to normal. Flavor Text: "You are driven not by heroism nor nobility, but by blood." We have well over a hundred Unique Items planned to go into the game, and intend to keep designing more and more. They will be found, crafted or purchased through various means. We will continue adding them in as we are able to do so. Many will be available at launch, with many more to come in free content patches post-launch. Thank you all for coming along with us on this ride. Being our first game, we have learned so much from this process, and without the help of our community, and the extremely valuable feedback we’ve received, we wouldn’t have been able to get to where we are today. There is so much more to come, and we are getting closer and closer every day. -Devs