Hello, Merchants! It has been over two months since our last State of the Game, and that’s too long! We wanted to show up today and give an update on the progress that has been made with the UI Update, and a few more details on what to expect with the next big patch to hit which will include this update. [h3][b]UI Samples[/b][/h3] First, we wanted to show some sample photos of the update coming your way! Keep in mind that every picture shown is a work in progress, and there may still be some minor and major changes coming to everything shown here. This first image below is showing the new Heroes Panel, along with all of the bottom and left panels being shown, more details on those toward the end of this showcase. As you can see, it drastically changes how the information is presented, not only based on location, but functionality as well. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42535422/f63fbb34c6d0891a754d862c455569606d4bc8bc.jpg[/img] We want everything to be as centrally located as possible, and so have drastically reduced the total count of major panels you’ll interact with from about 8, down to 3. The new major panels are the Realm Manager, Item Manager and the Player Manager. From those 3 major panels, you'll be able to do just about anything you need to in the game by using their built in sub-panels. This also means that if you are wanting to sort through heroes, you can open the Realm Manager panel, go to the Heroes sub-panel, select any hero and see their information all in the same panel. You can then perform just about any hero action you can think of from that very same panel. You can then switch to look at gathering nodes, dungeons and more all without having to leave that one Realm Manager panel. You may also notice that the baseline size of the panel we are using is larger than the current iteration. This was done so that we can combine the information from what would be two different panels in the current UI into just one panel, as shown in the image, allowing us to require a lot less “panel hopping” with the new style. This next picture shows some of the versatility with what is being displayed. Each of the panels on the bottom and left can be expanded and collapsed at will, which will allow you to keep your screen a little more clear whenever you’d like, only showing the basic information of those panels while they are collapsed. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42535422/a6152cfc40ac501edaea270be9afd18a9598018f.jpg[/img] Next, we wanted to show what the interface would look like if you have two of the main panels open, the current maximum. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42535422/82a23facd5a909f1772ff47d149b544708222eb6.jpg[/img] The left panel is one of the new major panels we are introducing called the Item Manager, and it does exactly what you’d expect it to do. Absolutely anything related to your management of items is now centrally located and confined to this one main panel. All of your different storages in one place, the ability to manage your heroes gear without having to open anything new, manage your storefront, manage containers and consumables, and just about anything else you might need related to items. This panel makes it much easier to see everything you have and get it to where you need it to go. The next and final picture is with absolutely every ui element that can be opened at once now being opened. That is, the two main panels, the left panel with the Guild Emblem on it, the notifications panel in the top left, the officer panel on the bottom left and the status panel in the bottom right. We don’t want to dive into the details of these elements quite yet, as it would be quite a bit of reading for you, but we will be releasing a video which will detail all the changes for our veteran players along with or slightly before the UI patch hits. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42535422/8704e350273a523ce6c44e25d064847dbf554b48.jpg[/img] This last picture has a lot going on with it, but remember, this is at the very late stages of the game with lots of heroes, lots of items, all the officers unlocked, etc., That’s about as crazy as the UI can possibly get on a single screen. One of our favorite changes that this update is bringing? NO MORE UI OVERLAP! Every single panel has its own space, and everything functions within that space only. Hero panels while looking at your inventory, for example, will pop IN to the main UI, as opposed to popping out or opening a new window while adjusting the inventory panel itself to make room for it. When you are queuing for a dungeon, instead of popping the dungeons outside of the officer cell, it overlays the officer cell, as shown in the small sample image below. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42535422/34647e1e7284cee4533260fecfafc69ebff6d4c7.png[/img] The Merchant’s Guide to the Kingdom has a plethora of information and actions that are available to players at any time, and our goal is to make it all as readable and easily usable as possible. These are only a few examples of how things are being condensed and made to be more sensible, and we have a lot more to show you in the future when the update is complete. For now, we just wanted to at least get the idea across and a preview of the style that is coming your way. [h3][b]Logbook Update[/b][/h3] We’ve been aware for a while that the current iteration of the Logbook is not the best method for learning the game, and there are a lot of points missing which help optimize the gameplay of Merchant’s Guide. Quite frankly, it’s been bugging us because we knew it needed fixing and updating, but also knew that with the UI update we would be reworking it from the ground up anyway and it was not the best use of our limited resources to do the Logbook twice. Thank goodness, the time is finally coming! We are planning a full reboot of the Logbook which will not only walk you through how to play the game with the new UI and new functionality, but will also have more exciting and appropriate rewards. The new Logbook will include much clearer indicators of what needs to be interacted with and when, and it will show you without dimming the rest of the screen. This will make for an overall much more seamless introduction to the game, and for those already familiar, will be a much less intrusive system while still providing the rewards as you progress your playthrough. [h3][b]Dungeon & Node Upgrading[/b][/h3] Following the release of the UI Update patch, we will be working on a full revamp to the Dungeon and Gathering/Fishing node upgrades. Right now it’s one simple upgrade button and cost per rank which gives you a little more of everything across the board, but we plan to make it much more exciting. The current max rank for dungeons and nodes is 5. Once this feature is implemented, the new max rank for each dungeon and node will be 25, and each location will have its own passive tree for you to choose how to upgrade it. For example, as you continue to clear and earn XP in, say, the Wolf Den, you will earn passive points which you can add into increased gold find for the dungeon, increased hero XP, increase magic find, and even increase the power of the monsters, which result in empowering all benefits of the dungeon, as well as impacting the damage that monsters take to help balance it, if you feel it’s needed. Alternatively in gathering and fishing nodes, you will be able to upgrade similar things as well as more quantity for the node, faster gathering and even the chance to find non-local materials such as finding metal while fishing and finding treasure chests with all kinds of rewards. These upgrade points will be earned by simply upgrading the nodes naturally by using them, but also bonus points will be purchasable, up to a maximum, to even further increase nodes efficiency and benefits. Ultimately, this dungeon and node upgrading system will allow for a lot more overall realm progression and growth, allowing you more resources and power to progress to the next dungeons, as well as making it much faster and easier for heroes spawning into the world at a later stage of your playthrough to catch up to your more seasoned heroes. [h3][b]1.0 Game Pace & Hero Behaviors[/b][/h3] With the final balance pass going into v1.0, we want Merchant’s Guide to feel more like an epic adventure from beginning to end. This means the pacing of the game will be quite different, and each dungeon you face will be something that has to be thought about and worked toward. Of course, you will be able to adjust difficulty settings still to base it around how you like to play, but we want you to feel accomplished with each dungeon clear, while always working toward that ultimate goal of clearing the final raid coming with v1.0. That said, we wanted to set up an appropriate warning for our veteran players! We do plan on slowing the game down a bit, as well as potentially doing a stat squish on items and heroes. This means that as you’re progressing through the game at Normal difficulty, we don’t want it to be a simple mindless dungeon grind as you’re progressing between raids. Unless you choose the Easy difficulty, of course, if that’s how you prefer to play, which admittedly, we sometimes do! We want each dungeon to present a certain level of challenge on its own, providing much more incentive to keep your heroes and your realm progressing at all stages of the game instead of just a few key moments that surprise you. Along with that, we have also heard and agreed with feedback regarding a few things about the hero's behavior not keeping up with you. Particularly in things like how your guild and free roaming officers make use of the guild bank, how world heroes buy and equip gear, and in fact, how gear generally floats around your realm as well. We intend to reduce drop rates of gear from dungeons to help incentivise more creative crafting (as well as updating how crafting works!) and making sales to and from heroes from your shop less common, but far more rewarding and impactful to your realm. Of course, we will be open to feedback, but ultimately, we want the strategy involved in the game to be a little more engaging and thought provoking, and we can’t wait to hear the feedback on all of these changes! [h3][b]So, when?![/b][/h3] As we always say, we’d love to be able to give a more concrete release window for these updates, we still aren’t quite ready to say when yet. The UI Update is over the halfway mark, but we also want to reiterate that this is not simply a visual update. We are fully reworking, from the ground up, every single system in the game that we have added over the last three years, making it look better, but also making the functionality much more sensible and fun to work with, and that’s certainly the culprit for this long delay in patches. We want to make sure it is right and ready when we finally get it out there in preparation for our v1.0 launch. However, we are very excited to get this UI update patch done, as it means that we have just a few more things to add and update such as the dungeon & node upgrade system, guilds rework and the final zone, and then we move into our balancing and polishing phase to prepare for our final release. We promise, we are putting everything we have into this final stage of development, and hope to deliver everything in a way which will make Merchant’s Guide the best that it can be! Thanks so much for coming along on this ride! -Devs