Wartales Community Update #1 Now Live

Earlier this month, Shiro Games launched their mercenary RPG Wartales into early access. And following some community feedback, they now bring us the first update for the game that overhauls its Happiness system, introduces new saving options, fixes a number of bugs, and more.

Here’s more on that:

Happiness system has been entirely reworked

Happiness is now accumulative. Some actions, such as assigning companions to the campfire, generate Happiness points. Conversely, not feeding or not paying your troops results in a loss of Happiness points. By accumulating Happiness, you reach levels that give you bonuses. If your total drops too low, your companions will be quick to leave your group. If a companion is ready to leave you, you will be afforded a last chance to convince him to stay with you.

Why such a change?

We received a lot of feedback mentioning that happiness was too hard to manage and feeling that it was weird that companions kept leaving the troop when they had been fed and paid for weeks. The troop size limitation also felt arbitrary.

Firstly, we wanted to remove the troop size limitation linked to happiness. Players should be able to recruit as much as they want and can feed and pay. That was our first move.

Secondly, we thought it was not clear enough what to do to improve happiness. It was too present while not being “fun” enough (no bonus provided etc). We think as long as you pay and feed your troop, you should not be fixing problems in your troop. That’s why we wanted an accumulative system : if the players can not pay or feed for one day, the amount of happiness will decrease before people want to leave. You have way more security. It is easier to manage now and we don’t really want happiness to be too reliant on management because the true management aspects are around food and wages. If you are able to pay, feed and fight well, your happiness will never be a problem.

Nevertheless, in the future, we will add camp events that will contribute towards happiness. Your companions will also develop relationships (friendship can bring happiness but may also cause grief). We’ll have more news on that once this system is closer to release!

Tutorials/Tooltips

• We have added a series of in-game pop-ups that will explain some mechanics such as activities or special encounters.

Customization

• You can now customize your starting group, choosing their name, hair, hair color, face and even starting skills.

Saves

You can now choose among three save modes :

• Free : You can save at any time and make multiple saves of the same game
• Normal (as it is actually in the game) : Only one save per game, but you can go back at any time to certain checkpoints, like the last village you visited, the beginning of a battle, etc.
• Ironmen : One save, one chance! You cannot go back and any Game Over is irreversible.

Recruits

• Recruits that have not been recruited should now rotate after 24 hours (In-world time).

World

• You can now evade generic fights you don’t want to take part in by spending resources.
• The Forge and the Inn in Cortia have been visually upgraded.
• Castles are now small villages : There includes the castle and another building.
• In Gosenberg, an end has been added if Corene has been brought to Alazar
• Septelle’s quest is now easier : Septelle is more powerful, you must kill only 2 guards and there is a notification when interacting with the bandit in the borderpost, informing the player that they have conditions to fill before bringing back Septelle. Notice the delay between guard attacks and lieutenant appearance has been reduced.
• In Tiltrën, the reward provided by executing Torus has been updated.
• Vertruse Setting : the reward received at the end of the Vertruse scenario if you chose to help Brunhilde now corresponds to the one she promises
• Hair growth peddler can now be beaten after being hurt by the potion

Level scaling

• Level scaling has received a first balancing round. You should not immediately face huge groups when you recruit a new person or level up. Note : we are still working on the no-level scaling system and we will deliver it in January.

Bugfixes

• Corene’s event bugs have been fixed.
• Delivering prisoners to prison should now drop your suspicion down.
• Leader Bonus are now removed when the leader dies without being engaged
• Layers providing +0 movement should now provide +1 movement.
• Trade missions from the mission board without items have been fixed.
• Companions’ starting traits are now generated according to equipped weapon
• Localisations problems have been fixed.
• If you kill a captured unit, it should now be removed from your troop.
• And more fixes.

SFX

• New sounds have been added.

Animations

• New animations have been added.

Camp

• You can now assign a Cook to the Cooking Pot to reduce daily food consumption.
• You can now assign a Tinkerer to the Workshop to produce Raw Materials each rest.

QOL

• The base price of an item is now displayed when a discount is applied to it.
• A knowledge has been added to allow you to mark objectives on the map.

Skills

• Bugs relative to Sprint have been fixed.
• Volley of arrows can now attack one more time max if you land a critical hit.
• Knife Throw does not engage an adjacent enemy anymore.
• Small Explosion now deals damage.

Items

• Hand bomblet now has no level restriction.

Balancing

• Food values have been updated to allow more variety.
• Wages are initially lower but now scale higher.