MoonWard Demo v0.9.69 Patch Notes!

Hello! I'm Mr. Slate and here you can find the patch notes for v.0.9.69 of the MoonWard Demo! This is the latest and as of today current MoonWard patch version.

The focus this time was to polish the playing experience by tweaking the AI and onboarding flow. I also updated some art and and did some bug fixing. Oh and a new story!

Lastly, before I continue, you can download the latest version of the MoonWard Demo here!

Please consider joining my Patreon, for early access content and many more perks, or donating through my Ko-fi page!

Let's get to the patch notes!

---

1. Brand new story!

I've been thinking about this story for a long while. I'm not going to talk too much about it because I don't want to spoil it, but I think anyone who is interested in choices and consequences will enjoy it!

It is in the second county and you get it at a relatively high level so you should all be familiar with the game systems and the character by the time you get it. The resolution can introduce some major changes to your gameplay and story. I'll stop there.

2. New quick character creation screen!

In a nutshell, when you try to create a character, the first screen you see will be of a few pre-made characters where you can only change their name and icon. You can still enable challenges from this screen. Clicking another button will take you to the advanced character creation screen where you can create much more nuanced characters.

I'm quite happy with this screen, I've already tested it with some of the attendees at the expo in Manchester and it was well liked there. What better place to test out a feature designed for brand new players than at an expo!

One of the main purposes of this screen is to reduce complexity for new players. MoonWard has a multitude of complicated systems already, so I wanted to make the first step a little easier for new players who want to jump right in without thinking too much about synergies between their class and background. All of that crunchy goodness is all still there, it just reveals itself a bit more gradually now.

The other reason was to give everyone, even players who like their deep customisation, an idea of what they should be doing with the characters they create. It sounds silly but a good example is always better than a bunch of numbers and text. That being said, I've put a lot of effort to enable weird builds, so please feel free to get creative!

3. Improved enemy AI!

I've overhauled a lot of the AI to improve its chances against cheesy tactics like spamming light attack. I focused on humanoid enemies although I improved some creatures as well.

Ok, I lied, I didn't just improve them, I added more categories of humanoid AI behaviour. Some enemies will now try to parry you all the time, others will use a ton of consumables, but even the old ones are a bit smarter with their combat decisions.

I don't want to oversell this because even From Software haven't really fixed this problem. Frankly it seems like they gave up at some point and just make certain enemies do a lot more damage than the player so trading hits is a very bad idea. And I've done that in a few places too, but I also tried to be creative with their behaviours.

4. Updated Dwelling art.

Several of the dwelling images looked a bit under-built. Specifically the House and Camp were just too simple.

The composition was all off, there was very little in terms of detail. With the benefit of some distance I grew to dislike how they turned out. Didn't help that I've been doing this for a long time and they were some of the first ones I made so I have a lot of experience now that I didn't then. Those two weren't the only ones I improved, but they are a good example. You'll know when you see them in-game. Or better yet you won't think about it and they'll just naturally look good... I can hope!

5. New Map art.

That's it! I'm done with the hexes - every biome and county has their unique look and feel now.

Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, I'll revise them once the game is out and see if I can improve on some of them but that doesn't change that I'm very happy with how all of them turned out!

This is only slightly related but I've got no other place to add it. I've removed the tropical forest biome. It was never playable in the demo, but it was visible on the map in the bottom right corner, along the coast. Originally I wasn't sure what distances the hexes were going to represent so I had snow-covered tundra on top and tropical jungles at the bottom as placeholders. Now that I'm happy with the game world scale those two make no sense. In all fairness the tundra was out early on and now it's time for the jungle. Instead of it I have a broadleaf tree biome which fits better as a median between the plains and the coastal dunes biomes. It also saved me days of work. At this point I'll take anything that does that!

6. Added animation when the Eternalist services are available.

The animation is similar to the MoonWard promotion letter but informs you of your new relationship with the Eternalists.

I added this because I was worried people don't realise how big of a deal the eternalist can be. From a gameplay point of view, it is absolutely game-changing to be able to upgrade your rare or unique equipment.

On a side note, I really like these short animated sequences. I've recently added even more of them in the full game. You either trigger them yourself (Aspect upgrades) or they naturally come up after loading screens. I think they work well as a quick, non-intrusive, focusing point for special events. I don't want to make too many of them because then they'll become a bit too mundane and will lose their impact but I do think I can do some cool stuff with them for the full game.

Either way the existence of these animations is not game-making or game-breaking so I can always just add a few more here and there post release.

7. Improved readability and flow for new players.

This mostly has to do with locking off certain screens options until there is something on them. The other big change is the main story panel in the journal now has a big blue button inviting you to press it!

All joking aside, I was testing with some family and they felt the journal pages were a bit bland and hard to read. Specifically, they thought the main story banner was a non-interactive visual element. That and confusedly scrolling the empty journal pages. Basically it looked like the game was a little broken. So scrolling is now locked until a few stories have passed. This is, just like the quick creation screen, chunking the information for new players. They don't need to know about the bounties and completed pages if they are empty.

Oh there is one other big change - you will no longer be able to skip the training session with Rowan on your first playthrough. The option to skip it only appears after you've fought him at least once! I know it's a bit mean to lock you into a tutorial but I feel new players would really benefit from this. Besides, the option to skip appears on all other playthroughs!

8. Fixed typos and bugs.

There were some fairly big ones in the last release that somehow managed to slip by me.

For example, you couldn't use buffing/healing consumables more than once in a fight! I don't know how I missed this one to be honest. I use buffs all the time. (As should you by the way, the stamina regen you get from water is a lifesaver in early game and extremely cheap! This is by design - hydrate!) Anyway that's now fixed so you can chug that healing like a champ.

The other big one was a little bit less noticeable. Some valuables can be used. Some will leave an item behind, some won't. At least that's what the game was supposed to do. It didn't it left all used valuables in your inventory where some you couldn't sell or use. Anyway, fixed now. Books should be the only valuables that can be used and remain in your inventory, ready to be sold back.

---

So these were the MoonWard Demo patch notes for v0-9-69. Let me know what you think in the comments or on our Discord server!

Thank you all for your time! I work hard on these patches so please give the MoonWard Demo a try!

Have a great week and like always,

stay awesome!