Stormsunder: Heirs of Ruin

More Testing and Character Specific Specializations
over 1 year ago – Tue, Oct 31, 2023 at 11:45:13 AM

Hello, folks!

We’re back with another testing update as well as more changes that have been influenced by that very testing. Let’s get into it…

State of the Testing
Last month we said testing wouldn’t be finished in October, which is true, but we’re finally past Act IV and our full focus will now be on Act V. A while ago we updated Specializations so they were obtainable at level 5 rather than level 6 as it really felt like we were locking this cool new part of progression at the very end of Heirs of Ruin. That put them firmly in Act IV, and the more we tested the less the then current state of Specializations felt right. Specializations were supposed to give players ways to customize their hero, which they did, but they ended up homogenizing the heroes and making them feel less unique. Our solution to that is below (and has already been tested). 

We’ve spoken multiple times about how Act V is unique among the acts and been overall pretty vague on why that is (as it’s a heavy spoiler for the end of HoR). What we will say is that Act V is built around a concept that is touched on in earlier acts, but is in full force. On top of that, it will be very core to both Bones of the Conquered and A Pharaoh’s Wrath (especially, APW), so it's important that we get it right. I know everyone is pretty much fed up with us at this point and absolutely nothing we do will change that except delivering the game we promised (and in its best, most polished state). Work on that continues and we’ll be back next month again to discuss where testing is at.

Character-Specific Specializations
We didn’t want to abandon the customization possibilities Specializations provided your heroes, so we decided to make them character-specific so they would maintain each hero’s identity. Each hero has two paths you can pick, each giving them unique ability cards as well as new Advanced Skill cards, as seen here for Aleksander:

Aleksander can choose the path of a Vampire Lord or a Rogue Assassin. Vampire Lord gives Aleksander Lifesteal against targets with Bleed and gives his Guile basic skill more versatility. Rogue Assassin makes Aleksander do more damage with assist attacks, such as Opportunistic Strike, and buffs Guile in a slightly different way. Here are a pair of examples of Ability cards from each path:

Vacrem has two paths to choose from as well: Tactician and Savage Warlord. Tactician focuses on teamplay, allowing him to share his powerful Wrath of the Faceless basic skill (and a way to give Offense to allies) while Savage Warlord allows Vacrem to be selfish and focus on his own power gain in Encounters by doubling the “charges” of Wrath of the Faceless and being able to give himself Offense.

These two abilities for Vacrem continue that teamwork / selfish playstyle with the armor-blessing Rampart and the crowd-controlling Overpower::

That’s all for now! We’ll be back next month with more news on testing and anything else that’s going on. Until then, we’ll see you in the Storm (where every warlord is savage and also lost. So very lost).

Testing Update, Signature Skill Progression and More
over 1 year ago – Fri, Sep 29, 2023 at 08:00:14 PM

Hello, folks!

  We’re back with another update, again singularly focused on testing, this time including some more of the changes that have impacted the game (for the better, we believe). But first, let’s see how testing has progressed in the 24-ish days since our last update.

State of the Testing
  We talked last update about how in April we had predicted September to be the end date for testing and how while we were semi-close (Acts I-III down, IV & V to go) and it was still possible to finish, only the next few weeks would let us know for sure. Now that September is essentially over, we can tell you that testing is definitely not finished. There are several reasons for that, of course, the primary being just how complicated and involved Act V is. Testing for Act IV is almost done but Act V looms like nothing we’ve ever finalized before. The results of the players’ choices are never more important than they are in the final act of Heirs of Ruin and they not only diverge the story in drastic ways, they also lead you straight into the first act of Bones of the Conquered, which we now have to seriously take into consideration before claiming Act V of HoR is finished. I know exactly what people will want, which is a date, but I’m so date-adverse at this point after years of being wrong, that I’d rather get beaten down in the comments than give one. All I will say is that we don’t expect testing to be done in October and we’ll be back in a month to talk about our progress.

Signature Skill Progression
  One of the things that became apparent during testing is that Signature Skills needed some work. They were incredibly powerful early on in the game but then started getting outclassed by regular abilities later in levels, which doesn’t really match with their cost/requirements. Others also felt way too strong early on  and eventually hit a bit of a middle in terms of balance later (see Improvised Traps below), so we wanted to level off their damage somewhat. Our solution to these problems has been pretty simple: tone down Signature Skills a little in the early game but let them gain in power as the heroes level. Here’s how we did just that with Adina’s Wall of Light Signature Skill (old version on the left):

 
As you can see, Wall of Light will do less damage at levels 1 & 2 but will do more at 4 & 5 (and Adina gets a new version at level 6). The limit to two enemies was a balance change to Wall of Light in general, not specific to this discussion (it was kind of broken in certain encounters). Here’s what we did with Vanessa’s Improvised Traps (again, old card on the left):

Improvised Traps was too strong overall (especially early on), now it rises in damage as Vanessa gains levels until it is replaced at level 5 (and then gains Bleed, I think, which is almost never not awesome).

How Location Affects the Wrath Deck
We looked at some location-specific cards ages ago, but I think those were mostly decision-based. We thought now would be a good time to look at some for the Catacombs, which makes venturing there a ghoul-ish good time (not sorry). For those who don’t know, or don’t remember, the Wrath deck is essentially a targeting deck for Adversaries. It determines their target and then usually gives them some sort of boost or effect when attacking. Having the same deck through five acts of the game would be boring, so we have cards that are location-specific that you mix in to keep the heroes on their toes. Let’s look at examples of those cards:

  Join the Ranks helps the melee-focused Makatti adversaries shamble in just a little closer, to everyone but the heroes’ benefit. Death’s Grasp has a bit of the same end result by moving a hero closer to the Makatti, but with a sinister bonus. Note that it says “move” not “place” meaning any prepared enemies (ones who couldn’t attack due to range) get a free shot at the poor, poor hero, assuming they are now in range.

Unholy Strength is a great card against tanks like Capac, especially early on in the encounter when they are decked out with lots of armor. We’ve talked before about encounters being about escalation, well this card turns that up a notch. Legion of the Dead lets the Makatti pile on a hero, if they are able, which can be punishing if you are playing an encounter where a specific hero or heroes has more Wrath cards in the deck.

  That’s all for now! We’ll be back next month with more news about testing and whatever else is going on. Until then, we’ll see you in the Storm (where “Legion of the Dead” are all the people wandering around in there).

    - LSG

The "All About Testing" Update
over 1 year ago – Tue, Sep 05, 2023 at 08:55:31 PM

Hello, folks!

As you may have noticed, a lot of the updates recently have talked about testing and that's for good reason. Heirs of Ruin is a massive game and with that monstrosity status comes an ungodly amount of testing. Months upon months (upon months) of testing, in fact. So, we've decided to dedicate this update to having a closer look at the variables that make Stormsunder so difficult to test, but also (ultimately) will make it a game you will absolutely enjoy playing again and again.

Before that, though, let's talk about where testing is at.

State of the Testing

Back in April we talked about the hope for testing to end in September. As it’s now September 5th (depending on your region), it’s only fair that we revisit that estimate. Our testers have been working hard at testing all the variables we’ll be talking about below, knocking sections of the game off their lists. Acts I through III are done, while Acts IV and V are still very much being actively tested. That doesn’t mean we’re only 3/5 of the way through testing (I yield in advance, comment section), it just means that Acts I-III are done while IV and V are not.

So, the question is, will we finish in September? It’s still possible, but only the next 3-4 weeks will let us know for sure. Act IV won’t cause us much trouble (aside from the compounding variables issue below) as it is fairly straightforward, but Act V is both unique and special and there’s a very good reason we haven’t talked about it (nor will we until people have a chance to play it simply because of the heavy spoilers). 

Stormsunder Testing (Variables Upon Variables)

We’re going to keep this section spoiler free, but we will address mechanics of a specific encounter (without offering any clue as to where they are in the story).

The vast majority of the testing involves encounters, so let’s talk about an encounter that illustrates the kinds of decisions players can make to succeed. The goal for this not-so-hypothetical encounter example is to slay an adversary and their minions. The map consists of the first room with three terrain pieces that need to be destroyed in order to open the next room (none of which are accessible at the start of the encounter). On rounds 2, 3 and 4, additional minions will spawn, but also reveal one terrain piece. The next room is accessible via a portal (revealed after destroying the three terrain) and contains the main adversary. At the end of each round, that adversary will buff his minions, enhancing their attacks.

There are 3 main approaches to this fight that the players can choose:

The Direct Approach – Slay the initial enemies and the additional ones as they come, slowly destroying terrain until they can access the main adversary. This is certainly the most logical way to deal with the Encounter, but the minion(s) guarding the adversary in the 2nd room will be incredibly powerful after so many turns, making that final room very painful for your heroes’ health pools.

The Speed Run – Players can opt to destroy the doors the spawning minions will come from, giving them access to the terrain quicker and allowing them to attempt to rush the second room (killing the adversary before his minions are too buffed). Clean-up will be required after, against less powerful enemies. It’s possible this is the best method, but you’re definitely doing your best to flood the first room with minions (which may not be the best idea if you have a more “squishy” party).

The Happy Medium – A balanced approach between the first two, destroying doors/terrain but not digging yourself too deep a hole in terms of buffs/minions from the first two options. Potentially quicker than the Direct Approach but not as reckless as the Speed Run, perhaps this is the best method? It’s difficult to say (well, it’s not difficult, I’m just not going to say).

Now that we have a specific encounter on our mind, let’s talk about the variables.

Encounter-Specific Adversaries 

We’ve added variations of adversaries in various encounters throughout Heirs of Ruin, giving more enemy variety to keep the game fresh. Wave 1 already has too many cards, so these encounter-specific adversaries are printed in the campaign book. They use existing miniatures (and are not different enough to warrant new minis anyway), so they are easy to implement as soon as you turn to the page. We don’t want to show any of these, mind you, so above is a level 1 Myrmidite Skirmisher I don’t think we’ve shown. These new adversaries allow us to play around with skills and make unique encounter mechanics we don’t have to worry about anywhere else.

Doors, Portals and Separate Rooms
Adding walls wasn’t the only way we fiddled with the original encounter map formula established in the demo. There was actually a boss fight that didn’t make it in that revealed different parts of the same large room the further the heroes ventured. Using portals and doors and other mechanics to reveal new areas during an encounter adds a little more “dungeon crawling” aspect to Stormsunder’s skirmish combat. For our example encounter, rushing the second room may prevent the minions from becoming too strong, but if they are summoned early will the party be able to handle them all at once? Playing it safe gives the heroes more control at the beginning but risks them being overwhelmed at the end.

Testing Challenges
While these types of missions give the players more replayability and interesting, story-defining choices, they also take more time to test. While straightforward missions need a certain number of test plays (and this number is never enough), missions that give players more ways to solve them need that much more testing to be fool-proof. The worst thing that could happen is for backers to receive their games and someone figures out a way to “break” an encounter on the first try. We have to test for the common solutions (as listed above) as well as the crazy ones.

Hero Levels & Equipment

All things considered, Act I testing provided the least problems. Every bit the introduction to Stormsunder’s mechanics, the encounters are fairly straightforward, the starting equipment was tailormade for each hero and the abilities were fixed at level 1. By the time the testers hit their first pass of Act IV, all bets were off and it seemed like even the most insignificant decisions they made before were changing the way they could (or needed to) tackle encounters. Equipment is varied and abundant, abilities and signature skills have greatly expanded, and a single encounter needs to be tested with as many different hero/party builds as possible. Some combinations of abilities and equipment could throw balance out the window (resulting in nerfs and/or buffs).

With hundreds of equipment cards, the variables increase. Available equipment for each hero needs to be tested, in combination with all their abilities, to make sure no overpowered combinations dominate in encounters. As an example, if an equipment card has a powerful On Critical skill and a hero has an ability that can add impact (red) dice, the chance of rolling a critical increases (making that skill more likely to proc). This can be okay if it’s a rare and interesting combo, especially if a player is making a high risk/reward decision, but we have to tread carefully to not throw that hero out of balance with the rest.

A Matter of Chance
Under the hood, Stormsunder has an adventure card game motif with abilities. Your starting hand and the order of the cards you draw throughout the encounter will change from fight to fight. Add dice to the mix and we’re talking about a lot of possible outcomes. A good hero build, proper strategy and adapting to that specific encounter will greatly affect the outcome, but if the RNG gods are against you and you roll a ton of blanks (or the adversaries act like their dice have none), it’s going to hurt. Extensive testing allows us to see if an encounter is well-balanced even through the ebb and flow of luck, or if it needs further tuning.

The Wrath Deck

The Wrath Deck usually consists of location-specific cards and a certain number of basic and hero cards. Since the deck is formed from all of these cards, some are left out, enhancing replayability but also creating more scenarios for us to test. Drawing two Harass cards means the enemies will have a greater AoE potential, while having two Mends will cause them to heal more. Adding extra AoE to adversaries in an encounter with tight spaces can cause a lot of problems (as can giving healing to difficult to damage adversaries). It’s all about the balance.

There’s more variability than what we’ve just gone over, but I think that’s enough for now (don’t get me started on Wayward Heroes). It’s taken an absolute eternity to properly test Heirs of Ruin, but the results are a more balanced game and something that is more likely to stay in your collection once you finally receive it.

That’s all for now! We’ll be back next month to see where we are (yet again) with testing along with whatever other Stormsunder news is pressing. Until then, we’ll see you in the Storm (chance permitting).

- LSG

Play Stormsunder's Demo on Tabletop Simulator (and other news)
over 1 year ago – Mon, Jul 31, 2023 at 09:47:16 PM

Hello, folks!

In this update we talk about “special” encounters in Heirs of Ruin (and beyond) as well as announce that the Stormsunder demo is now available on Tabletop Simulator, but first: testing.

State of the Game: Testing Edition 3

I’ll be honest, there’s not much to say on testing except that the good work continues, and it looks like we’re still on track for a September wrap-up, but there’s a lot of work to do over the next two months to make that happen. I think I mentioned last month that we’d cover some more token changes this update, but after you read what we did end up covering you’ll probably agree it was a more fun (and exciting) choice. 

Encounters continue to be the most time-consuming (and important) part of testing as we try to reach the finish line. Speaking of which, you should really check out the “spoiler” section of this update. It’s not really a spoiler and there’s good fun to be had with it.

Stormsunder Demo Live on Tabletop Simulator

Thanks to the tireless efforts of Lukas Waschk, you can now play the Stormsunder demo on Tabletop Simulator! Like all digital representations of board games, it’s not the ideal way to play Stormsunder, but since there were only 4 or so copies of the demo ever produced, it’s definitely the most realistic way to try it out. 

A couple of notes that should help you on your way:

- There are spoilers (of course), though, honestly, nothing particularly earth-shattering. The story threads in the demo are purposely cut short, so you won’t be learning anything crazy about the plot that wouldn’t (Heirs of) ruin the game for you when you finally get it.

- Read the rulebook. I can’t express how important it is that you read the rulebook first.

- Copy/Paste is your friend. Use it to make more adversary standees, terrain, adversary deck cards, etc.

- Be sure to right click and lock the game boards and terrain after you place them. This is sage advice for any digital board game software.

- Rather than use Health tokens, Lukas put calculators for the heroes, etc.

- Currently the card backs of all loot cards are the same (look at the deck label to confirm you are drawing the right card. We’ll see if we can’t get that fixed.

- Finally, please remember that Stormsunder has grown a lot since the demo. Heroes and adversaries have been rebalanced (the heroes are pretty decked out in the demo) and obviously there’s a little bit more going on (mainly context) once you reach this part of the story. The core of the game remains the same, however, and the demo was one of the craziest projects I’ve ever been apart of and even in its unfinished and outdated state, it’s still amazing.

 
Here is the unlisted link on Steam (Tabletop Simulator required, of course): https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2793745008

I’ve also added a new channel in the LSG fan Discord (tabletop-simulator in Stormsunder) so folks can help each other out and organize games if they want to try it with some like-minded individuals. Here’s a fresh link: https://discord.gg/cBrveE8BfW

Eternal thanks again to Lukas Waschk for setting this up. If you’ve ever put together something like this, you know that some of it is super easy but just takes forever and the rest is impossible and also takes forever. It takes a special kind of patience to make this kind of thing a reality and we are very much grateful.

“Special” Encounters
Warning: The lightest of spoilers below. The spoiler is actually that a certain kind of encounter exists; everything below is not actually in the game (I wrote the story today and the map doesn’t even use actual map tiles). Honestly, no one has told me where the spoiler line is so I’m probably going overboard, so I’m just going to let Aleksandra “shush” me and move to the end.

.

So, what is a “special” encounter? Well, that’s not actually a thing. What *is* a thing are puzzle encounters! Special scenarios where the players need to put their noggins together and figure out how to solve a problem presented by the campaign book. As I said, the example below is completely made up for this update, so feel free to have fun with it. Stormsunder always begins with story, so here’s what I wrote for the great puzzle update of 2023…

Their leader dispatched, the cultists retreated into the darkness of the cave. Adina raised her torch to provide more light so the party could give chase, but they were alone with the dead. “This will not be the last time we face them,” Capac said, resting his hammer on his shoulder. “They will regroup and ambush us again.”

“If only Deadeye hadn’t gotten us lost,” Aleksander said with a smirk, waiting for the inevitable retort from Vanessa. The cave was silent for the next few moments as the entire party waited for a reply that did not come. “Deadeye?”

“Vanessa!” Capac yelled. He hurried past the bodies of the dead cultists, flipping some over to make sure his friend was not among them.

“The cultists must have taken her when they fled,” Adina said, a twinge of worry in her voice.

“Maybe they’ll sacrifice her to their dark gods!” Aleksandra squealed with glee. Capac and Adina both looked back at her, glaring. “What? That’s what I would do.”

“Before the attack, Vanessa said we needed to take the next right at that tunnel,” Capac said, pointing the way as he ran. “Perhaps we can still catch her kidnappers.”

The party ran down the tunnel, following Vanessa’s instructions. They arrived at a small room with a large wooden table. Engraved on the table was a map of the cave along with several runes, each with a different color. As Adina approached the table, the map shimmered, revealing Vanessa and the cultists. “Look! Vanessa is trapped in that room.” Adina said, pointing at the tiny illusion of the Nyere pounding her fist on the door keeping her locked in.

“Oooh, pretty,” Aleksandra said as soon as she reached the table. She pressed the pink rune with her index finger, causing it to glow. All the pink doors in the cave glowed as well, before opening. One of the guards passed through one of the doors and then they all closed once more.

“That would be needlessly complicated… You don’t think?” Aleksander asked aloud. He was about to press the blue rune, but his sister was way ahead of him.

“No, yellow!” she giggled, pressing the yellow rune. Once again, the rune glowed, as did the doors. This time all three guards in the area near Vanessa’s cell passed through the open doors, either ordered or mystically compelled to do so. “Dance my puppets. Dance!”

Aleksander grabbed Aleksandra by the waist, lifting her off the ground and away from the table. “Why don’t we let the adults pick the next color, hm?” he said.

“No fair,” Aleksandra pouted, struggling to reach for another rune.

Capac frowned. “We can lead the guards as much as we like, but the door to Vanessa’s cell has no color.

Adina’s eyes opened wide with excitement. “But what if it did?” The priest closed her eyes and pressed her finger against one of the red doors. Her hand began to glow as her lips moved in silent prayer. Adina dragged her finger across the map, the red bar following it until she released it on Vanessa’s door. The entire map shuddered and then returned to its normal state. It was as if Vanessa’s door, and no other jail cell, had always been part of the access system of the cave.

“Shall we lead the Nyere by her nose, then?” Aleksander said, smiling from ear to ear. “She’ll never hear the end of it, I assure you.”

Rules
Vanessa has been captured by the Cult of the Ruined Horn! Help her escape by leading her to the exit while keeping the guards away from both her and her cell. When you press one of the five runes all 4 doors of that color immediately open. Any character in a room will immediately go through the opened door into the adjacent room. 

If at any point Vanessa should meet a guard, the encounter is a failure. If at any point a guard goes into Vanessa’s cell, he will sound the alarm, and the encounter is a failure. If you open a door between two rooms that have guards, they will simply switch positions. Since Vanessa cannot communicate with you, but realizes you are breaking her out, she will always move through an opened door.

Can you complete these different difficulties with the lowest number of turns possible:

Easy: Lead Vanessa to the exit.
Normal: Lead Vanessa to her equipment and then the exit.
Hard: Same as normal mode but if at any point a guard is left in a room for 3 turns, they become suspicious and sound the alarm.

That's all for now! We'll be back next month with more testing news and who knows what else. Until then,  we'll see you in the Storm (the puzzle no one has been able to solve).

- LSG

Encounter and Adversary Evolution
over 1 year ago – Fri, Jun 30, 2023 at 07:20:01 PM

Hello, folks!

In this month’s update we’re going to look at one of the encounters from the demo and see how the setup and the adversaries included have changed with testing. But first, let’s check in with testing itself:

State of the Game: Testing Edition 2

So far so good, we’re still on track for the testing deadline we set a couple months ago (September 2023). Encounter balance still remains the top priority, with hero balance now being more focused purely on endgame (HoR endgame, not APW). We talked last month about some new status effects (which included new tokens), but we’ve also taken a hard look at existing tokens and have made a simple change that will reduce the number of tokens on the game board (more on that next update, I think).

As for the other testing topics we mentioned last month, we think shops are in a decent enough place now (companion testing kind of goes hand-in-hand with encounter testing, so that work continues). I expect we’ll talk about them in one of the upcoming updates. Like I said, though, encounter testing is our primary focus, so I thought we could take a look at how one of the demo’s encounters has changed since it was first shown off... 

Encounter/Adversary Updates

Warning: The lightest of spoilers below. I won’t talk about story and I even cut off the setup text for the encounter, so we are talking about spoilers so minor you shouldn’t stress about it. But, if you want to know absolutely nothing about encounters/adversaries, you’ve been warned.

Still here? Great! Let’s talk about the Guard Captain Sever fight from the demo. Here’s the original set up:

I didn’t want to show the full set up (with the text) to keep things as spoiler-free as possible, but basically the terrain with either a “u” or an “a” was for treasure (urns, etc) and the goal was to push through as fast as you could to get better loot (you know, while trying to win the fight).

Here is the new version:

As you can see, there’s quite a few changes. There’s one less Tarpitt Guardsman (they are pretty strong; more on that below) and the placement of everything is much different. The lowercase b’s are traps and the lowercase a’s are holes (too easy). Holes have been reworked, by the by, as part of our “fewer stuns/lost activations” initiative. Entering a hole (via adventurous optimism or being pushed) now assigns 6 damage to a hero or adversary and they must spend 2 Speed to exit the hole on their next activation. Traps are also new; these particular ones assign 4 damage for those who enter or are forced onto that field. Did I mention the Tarpitt Guardsmen all get Knockback for this encounter? Seems relevant.

The old fight took quite a lot longer to complete and while going after treasure is always fun, we have other encounters for that and this one, given the “direct” setup, suffered from a lack of strategic depth. Positioning is incredibly important in the new version as you not only want to try to knock vampires into holes, but you also want to be sure the same doesn’t happen to you. The same can be said for the traps, of course (its better to give than receive) and generally this fight feels more fast paced, aligning it nicely with the story that precedes it.

Another factor, of course, is the changes we’ve made to the vampire adversaries. Let’s start with Sever, first; here’s her old card:

Sever was incredibly scary in the demo. Left unchecked, she could put some heroes in body bags by accident. Her personal damage is toned down in her new version, as is her group damage potential. In the wake of those nerfs, she retains some coordination with those under her command with her updated Strategist aura:

The Tarpitt Guardsmen weren’t quite as ruthless as Sever, but they had a habit of staying a lot longer than they should have (unless you were packing a lot of magic-prone wayward heroes and Adina, and then they were dropping too quickly). Here is their original card:

We toned down their AOE potential by making part of Elegant Strike an On Special ability and giving them magical defense if they maintained their Defensive Formation. We also reworded Intervene to be less confusing:

Tarpitt Inquisitors were kind of underwhelming in the demo, honestly. They are the faction's main ranged DPS, but it never felt like they were a consistent threat:

So, we buffed them pretty hard, making them priority one in whatever encounter you find them in. They now attack twice in a single activation (but at lower damage), split against adjacent targets. This encourages the buddy system for all field trips to Tarpitt, so make sure you don’t miss the bus:

That’s all for now! We’ll be back next month to give more info about testing and to look at what else has changed for the better thanks to said testing. Until then, we’ll see you in the Storm (where the buddy system only works if your buddy is a Nyere).

- LSG