Balandar

Read the story here: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/the-emperors’-and-empresses’-new-clothes.48376/

Better get them while they last! https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?page_id=9085 From: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?p=57326

Read the full post here. [A forum post by Starr Long] Greetings Avatars, As we have stated previously, our goal is to once-per-quarter post an updated schedule for our monthly releases. Even though these goals will likely change somewhat as we react to feedback, we feel it is important to provide you an updated roadmap periodically. Our goal continues to be to deliver our backers content each and every month so that we can get feedback and use it to iterate improvements. This continues to benefit the game, with sweeping changes like the switch over to use-based advancement. Meeting that monthly goal is our highest priority, but we require flexibility in our deliverables in order to meet that goal. As you have seen in previous releases, sometimes we push things out, but we also often pull new things in. The second quarter of 2016 is focused on getting Shroud of the Avatar to persistence for Release 32 in July as outlined in my Final Wipe and Lot Selection Post, which in addition to discussing Final Wipe an Lot Selection also discusses which items will be in by July and which will come online afterwards. As we get closer to July, each release will focus more and more on polish and balance versus new content. As always, all dates, durations, and deliverables are subject to change as we adjust our designs based on direct feedback from you, our backers. RELEASE 29, April 28, 2016 - Full Wipe: Once again, we are going to make some fundamental changes to item and quest architecture that require us to do a full wipe for Release 29. We apologize for the inconvenience. Please note that if you have been waiting to convert your purchases to store credits, this is your chance to do so as long as you do NOT log into the game once R29 goes live (which automatically claims the items and prevents conversion). NOTE: This is the last wipe before the final wipe in July. - Story: New scenes will appear in the regions of North Paladis, Midmaer, and Verdantis, including the city of Central Brittany which will appear in the game for the first time. At this point, the Love storyline will be playable from beginning to end and we will begin final polish on that storyline. - Lot Selection Sequence: The lot selection sequence process implemented and tested by players. Pacing for these initial tests will be very accelerated with lot selection windows being mere minutes versus a full 24 hours. - Player Towns: Player Owned Towns that have locked submission forms will appear in the game, and more Player Run Town scenes with small NPC cores with basic functions (banks, shops, trainers) will appear across Novia. New variations on the town templates may also appear. - Performance: Major efforts will be done to optimize performance. This will include frame rate improvements, load time improvements, and memory footprint improvements. We will also begin officially supporting Windows 10. RELEASE 30, May 26, 2016: - Story: The town of Valhold on the island of Norguard will appear in game and we will begin a final polish on the Novia overworld. - Multiplayer Economic Balance: A pass will be made through creature loot bundles, merchant pricing, property taxes, public vendor fees, harvesting rates, agriculture growth, crafting recipe ingredient amounts, and other factors to begin establishing an equilibrium for the multiplayer economy - Multiplayer Combat Balance: A pass will be made through combat skills, creature stats, player stats, advancement rates, zone difficulties, and other values to establish an equilibrium for multiplayer combat. - Single Player Offline: The first Single Player Offline specific features will become available to players in the form of Save Games and Companions. - User Interface Polish: Various aspects of the user interface will be refactored and upgraded for visuals and usability - Player Towns: Player Owned Towns that have locked submission forms will appear in the game, and more Player Run Town scenes with small NPC cores with basic functions (banks, shops, trainers) will appear across Novia. New variations on the town templates may also appear. - Performance: Major efforts will be done to optimize performance. This will include frame rate improvements, load time improvements, and memory footprint improvements. We will also be adding DX11/12 support for Windows and OpenGLCore for Linux and OSX. RELEASE 31, June 30, 2016 - Story: The dungeon of Artifice on the island of Elysium will welcome pilgrims for the first time, and the Courage storyline will be playable from beginning to end for the first time. - New User Experience Polish: Final polish passes will be done on the Tutorials, hints, and starting scenes. - New Female Avatar: A complete overhaul of the female avatar, including a completely new sculpt and skin texture. - Service Hardening: We will begin a series of passes through the client, authentication, and server to harden the service for security and customer service. Special attention will be paid to the Patcher. - Single Player Offline Combat Balance: A pass will be made through the game to adjust combat balance for play in offline mode with companions. - Player Towns: Player Owned Towns that have locked submission forms will appear in the game, and more Player Run Town scenes with small NPC cores with basic functions (banks, shops, trainers) will appear across Novia. New variations on the town templates may also appear. - Performance: Major efforts will be done to optimize performance. This will include frame rate improvements, load time improvements, and memory footprint improvements. We continue to be incredibly thankful for the support we receive from this amazing community. While the funding you provide makes all of this possible, it pales in comparison with the faith you have in us, the feedback you provide us, and the content you are making for everyone to enjoy. We are humbly grateful, and we cannot wait to see you again in New Britannia! Before I go, I wanted to include an excerpt from my original post about our Early Release Schedule that is important to set the framework for our ongoing schedule: As a crowd funded and crowd sourced project, we feel it is incredibly important that we provide our backers with information and access well before game studios would normally do so in a traditional development model. Traditionally, the players are given information and access only after the development team has already decided exactly how things will be done, and at times, even after it has already been implemented. By the time the public normally has access to the product, there is usually no time to meaningfully react to the public feedback. Shroud of the Avatar is different than the traditional model, as we intend to offer our backers extremely early access to information and even the game itself. With that said, we also want to be very careful that we only provide access to portions of the game when they are ready for a wider range of feedback. If we can play it internally and we know it is not ready, then there is nothing to be gained by having a wider audience come to the same conclusion. In fact, it could be quite damaging to do so. Our strategy over the next few months is to provide you with focused and iterative releases of content. Your feedback during these releases will be critical to making the final product the best it can be, and we appreciate that you are all so willing to devote your time to helping us. With each release, we will have specific tests we will ask you all to make. As we get closer, we will send instructions on how to download, install, report bugs, etc. After each release we will review the results and reevaluate the plan including the duration of availability of each release. Please note that game data will be wiped periodically during early access. It is important to note that all dates, durations, and deliverables are subject to change. Sincerely, Starr Long Executive Producer Shroud of the Avatar From <https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?p=57326>

For tips and T.H.E. members, see the forum post below:

For crafting stations... https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/crafting-stations-and-bonuses.44336/#post-530805

You can read the complete Release 28 instructions here. Highlights: - 42 new scenes appearing in seven different regions - Introduced Bulk Crafting and Bulk Salvage.. - The Shores of Malice and Malice - Skrekk and The Caverns of Skrekk - A new window to the crafting stations to deliver information that includs success chance, critical chance, and whether placed items represent an unlearned recipe - Obsidian introduced - Agriculture Growth Rate Indicator - Sheet Music - Guest Lot Binding: Players who have Guest (or higher) permissions on a lot can now bind for Recall to that lot. - Automated Phonograph (Now I can play "Death" over and over at my tower!) - Kobold Homes and Decorations - Load Times: Load times should be noticeably better, especially for large city scenes and story scenes with lots of dialog. In local tests, load times for Owl’s Head were cut in half. More metrics were also added for tracking load times. - Containers in List Inventory: You can now use containers in List Mode to sort and view your inventory. Previously List Mode would display everything in your inventory regardless of whether it was in other containers (bags, chests, etc.). - Lying Down in Beds - Examine: This option has been added to the menu when you right click on other players and allows you to see their paperdoll. - Scene User List (aka /who): This is a list of all players currently in the same instance of the scene you are in. Guildmates and friends show character names, others show as anonymous. By default this list can be accessed via Numpad 0. - 9 New Shields: There are now 9 new shields in the game. In future releases they will be craftable. - New Male Avatar - Temporary Invulnerability: When players respawn after death or first appear in a scene, they are temporarily invulnerable for a few seconds, or until they perform an action - Winter Telethon Rewards: Everyone who pledged at least $5 during our Winter Telethon will now receive their /snow emote and Snowflake Cloak (which extends the length of the /snow emote duration when worn). - Mountain Template 01: Players who have selected this template and who have locked their submission form will be automatically switched over in Release 29. We'll see this for our town in R29.

Basics: Units with swords beat units with spears. Units with spears beat cavalry. Cavalry beats units with swords. The Longbowmen you start with are effective against all targets at range. Don't fire into a fight taking place without using Take Aim or Precision, because they will kill your own guys too. You get to see in advance how the AI army is laid out. Change your own layout to optimally beat theirs. Is their frontline all cavalry? Make your frontline have spears (favored) or cavalry (equally matched). Time the charges to be Great or Perfect. It's important. Different units have different optimal times to charge. For cavalry, it's fairly far away. For spearmen, you need to wait until they're closer. Use your artillery as often as possible. Use your church orders as often as possible. Use your unit abilities (once per unit per battle). Advanced unit info: https://forums.totalwar.com/discussion/comment/1498760/#Comment_1498760 Pasted from <https://forums.totalwar.com/discussion/170319/army-setup-help> Additional Information There's a bit more to the units than just their raw numbers. There's an interaction between weapons (the cavalry->infantry->spears triangle), armor types, and shield types. Plate armor is more effective than leather, even if the numbers are equal. Easy example: Crossbowmen have great stats -- high numbers all around. But their equipment is lackluster: short sword, hard leather, small shield. They cannot stand up to swordsmen of equal stats. Ballista: Fast reload. Small area of effect. Sometimes "misses", but is otherwise effective against all armor types. Does notfriendly fire. Ballista is really quite weak, and you should buy/craft Mangonel or Trebuchet as soon as you can. Nobody in the top 10 of the PvP ladder uses these. Mangonel: Medium reload. Murders cloth/leather armor units. Okay against chain. Almost never kills plate. Will kill your own units. Trebuchet: Slow reload. Kills anything in a slightly smaller area than mangonel. Will kill your own units. Swordsmen: Average infantry. Effective against spears. Can use Critical Strike or Saviours. Spearmen: Very effective against cavalry. Not great against other footsoldiers. Chain armor with no shields makes them uniquely vulnerable to ranged attacks. Can use Spear Wall or get instant reinforcements. Macemen: Not sure on the specs, but I've seen them used in PvP and they seem okay. Axemen: Very high attack, very low defense. Seems to lose in most matchups, likely due to bad defense. They're supposed to be good against knights, but I don't see it. Can use Invincibility or Fear. Light Cavalry: Very high attack, very low defense. See axemen. Murders ranged units, but tends to die quick. Can boost attack for 10 seconds, or get instant reinforcements. Medium Cavalry: Balanced stats. Good against infantry. Can use Critical Strike or rider brotherhood. Max of 1. Knights Cavalry: Balanced stats. A bit overpowered with its plate armor and medium shield, really. Can use Invincibility or Fear. Max of 1. Longsword Knights: Balanced, very strong stats. Since these are free and better than swordsmen, you should definitely have one unit in your army. Max of 1. Greatsword Knights: Strong stats with a slant toward attack. Pretty strong, but their lack of shields makes them more vulnerable to ranged attacks, javelin throwers, and they can't Shield Wall. Max of 1. Greataxe Knights: Strong stats with a heavy slant toward attack. Similar to Greatsword Knights, but their lower defense makes them strictly worse in most cases. Max of 1. Longbow Archers: Longest range. Good against all targets, but no specialization. Can use precision or feather brotherhood. Javelin Throwers: Very short range. Effective against any armor, but does almost nothing against medium/large shields. Effective in melee versus cavalry. Can use Wild Shot or Spear Wall. Crossbowmen: Can only fire at enemy unit directly in front, or to the side if they are in the "melee row". This means they'll be firing at your own units in a melee (Precision, Take Aim, or Invincibility highly recommended). You cannot fire over a melee. Effective against all targets. Fast first shot, but very slow reload. Good melee stats for ranged, but their poor equipment hurts them. Has shields for Shield Wall. Can use Critical Strike or Precision. Max of 1. Composite Bow Archers: Slightly shorter range than Longbows. Faster fire rate. Good against leather armor units, but not very effective against chain or plate. Can use Flurry, or something else I forget. Max of 1. Hunters: Bad version of Longbow Archers. Levies: Bad version of Spearmen. Pasted from <https://forums.totalwar.com/discussion/comment/1498760/#Comment_1498760>

Available for almost all platforms: PC, Mac, iOS, Android (can be found on steam as well). Similar to Clash of Clans with a mix of Dominations tossed in.. https://www.totalwar.com/games/total-war-battles-kingdom Current THE players: Balandar - @Balandar BorgStonewall - @Borg Once you reach aprox level 15 you add friends. Update For those playing Total War Battles: Kingdom... "To celebrate the occasion and make your start a little easier, we're throwing in a voucher code for 1000 Silver, Food, Stone and Wood, redeemable once per account and valid until 21st April 2016. URXYW95W2B"

The Honor Empire will have a static hold fast in SoTA (purchased by @Borg). We'll be updating the website with his design and layouts soon. On final wipe we'll have a dynamic town until the developers can build our permanent static town. This means that we'll not see our final version until Septemberish. However, in the mean time, we can start to see what our mountain biome will look like! "Michael “Hutch” Hutchison has been hard at work in this latest Player Owned Town template. This is both an entirely new layout and a new biome representing a high mountain pass with a lake. Players who have selected this template and who have locked their submission form will be automatically switched over in Release 29. Here are a few shots of the work in progress which can be visited as a nested town in Hometown in Release 28." Note: Images have been compressed with tinypng. Original Post