Wir berichteten bereits über die Probleme, welche A Year of Rain zusetzten. Nun hat sich Daedelic zu Wort gemeldet und quasi ihr Early-Access RTS-Game zu Grabe getragen. Leider haben ca. 5000 verkaufte Einheiten nicht zur Finanzierung einer Weiterentwicklung gereicht. Wir bedauern diese Entscheidung, können es aber auch Nachvollziehen. Wir hoffen das nächste Projekt wird wieder ein Erfolg.
Liebe Community,
wir können euch jetzt Einblick in das wahrscheinlich letzte große Update zu A Year of Rain geben. Wir entschuldigen uns für die lange Stille, aber wir wollten ganz sicher sein, dass alles so funktioniert, wie wir es vorhaben. Das bedeutet auch, dass das Update bereits in den nächsten 2 Tagen erscheint. Von Anfang an war es unser Ziel, unsere eigene individuelle Leidenschaft und Liebe zum RTS-Genre zu zeigen und gleichzeitig neue Erfahrungen in der Welt der kompetitiven Titel zu sammeln. Im Laufe dieser Zeit haben wir viele Rückmeldungen erhalten – sowohl positive als auch negative, aber meist konstruktive. Wir veranstalteten Turniere mit RTS-Veteranen, die uns ihre Meinung und ihr Lob gaben, und wir hatten großartige, ehrliche Gespräche mit unserer Community über Discord, Steam und auf Conventions wie PAX West oder dem Wacken Open Air. Leider, auch wenn dies auf der emotionalen, persönlichen Seite mehr war, als wir je hätten verlangen können – hat uns die niedrige Spielerzahl, die ihr alle selbst erlebt hat, stark zugesetzt. Wir bedauern es zutiefst, wenn sich jemand durch den von uns notwendigerweise eingeschlagenen Weg enttäuscht fühlt oder fühlen wird. Aber wir sind ein unabhängiges Studio mit begrenzten Ressourcen.
Wir haben uns entschieden, die aktive Entwicklung von A Year Of Rain auf Eis zu legen und die laufenden Kosten zu minimieren, indem wir die offiziellen Spielserver mit einem neuen P2P-System ersetzen. Ihr könnt weiterhin Multiplayer-Spiele spielen, indem ihr eine Lobby öffnet, der andere beitreten können, aber es wird kein automatisches Matchmaking mehr geben.
Das bedeutet auch, dass Ranglisten und Spielerstatistiken verschwinden werden, aber als positiven Nebeneffekt werden Porträts und Titel von Anfang an automatisch freigeschaltet. Im Moment wird es keine weiteren Ergänzungen oder signifikanten Verbesserungen am Spiel geben. Leider bedeutet dies, dass einige der Änderungen, an denen wir gearbeitet haben – wie die überarbeitete Wegfindung – nicht kommen werden.
Derzeit mussten wir zwischen dem bestehenden Wegfindungsystem, das nicht ideal ist, aber funktioniert, und dem neuen Wegfindungsystem, das zwar fortschrittlicher, aber einfach nochnicht funktionsfähig ist, wählen. Es gibt keine einfachen oder schnellen Lösungen für diese Situation, da die geringen Verkäufe und die geringe Spielerzahl uns daran hindern, die neue Wegfindung abzuschließen.
Die restlichen Karten sowie den neuen Spielmodus „Against All Odds“ werden wir jedoch weiterhin veröffentlichen, wenn wir auf die neue Version wechseln. Obwohl die neuen Inhalte nicht ganz dem gewohnten Qualitätsniveau entsprechen, das wir als Messlatte für uns selbst gesetzt haben, glauben wir, dass wir sie nicht zurückhalten sollten und wollten mit euch teilen, woran einige Teammitglieder in den letzten zwei Jahren gearbeitet haben.
Um mehr über die von uns implementierten Änderungen zu erfahren, lest euch bitte unten das detaillierte Changelog durch. Bitte entschuldigt, dass es nur auf Englisch existiert.
Wir hoffen, dass ihr unsere Situation versteht und trotzdem Spaß an dem Spiel in seiner neuen Form habt. Wir konnten so viel wie möglich von der Erfahrung erhalten, und wir hoffen, dass ihr unsere Bemühungen erkennen könnt.
Vielen Dank für eure unbändige Unterstützung seit der Veröffentlichung. Ihr habt uns die nötige Kraft gegeben, mit dieser sehr schmerzhaften aber notwendigen Entscheidung fertig zu werden. Hoffentlich haben wir das mit der speziellen Art und Weise, wie wir mit den unglücklichen Umständen umgehen, wieder gutgemacht.
Mit freundlichen Grüßen – Das A Year Of Rain Team
PATCHNOTES
Version 1.1.16736
February 2020
In case of questions, please join our Discord server.
Peer-to-peer Multiplayer
As we’re shutting down the official A Year Of Rain servers, we still want to make sure that you get the absolute most and best out of the game.
Thus, we have added peer-to-peer support to the game to still allow you to play with your friends any time you like, along with a lot of additional („Beta“) content for you to explore. The Hotfix will hit the servers on Thursday February 6th.
In this context, we are also delivering the following changes to the game client:
- Removed the login screen and the news and Logout button from the main menu.
- Removed the summary, match history, ladder, career and friends list from the player profile.
- Removed role, player and league progressions as well as the Report Player button from the score screen.
- Removed Terms of Service and Analytics, and updated the Privacy Policy accordingly.
- Added the possibility to host a game from within the game client.
- Added the possibility to connect to any game using a server browser.
- Unlocked the whole collection of player portraits, portrait borders and titles for all players. (Supporter Pack content still stays exclusive for supporters).
- Version number is now shown in the main menu.
New Game Mode: Against All Odds!
We have added the current status of Against All Odds to the game! The maps haven’t been fully polished, but we wanted to share them with you anyway!
- New Map – Payload (Beta): Two heroes alone take on two armies with whole bases. Push the Construct to the opposing side of the map to win!
- New Map – Survival (Beta): Four players face an endless horde of ugly menacing fiends. Survive as long as you can!
New Feature: Ping Menu!
Players can now press and hold the Ping hotkey (default: G) to choose among five different pings: Attack, Defend, Move, Help, Danger!
- Each ping will have different visuals in the game world.
- Each ping will automatically send a different chat message to all team members.
- AI players will ignore enemies on their path when following Move or Help pings.
New Feature: Team Notifications!
Players can now press the Ping hotkey (default: G) while hovering UI elements to send special chat messages to their team members!
- Hovering an ability button on the command grid and pressing the Ping hotkey will notify team members of the remaining ability cooldown.
- Hovering a construction button on the command grid and pressing the Ping hotkey will notify team members that you want to construct that building.
- Hovering a living hero portrait and pressing the Ping hotkey will notify team members of the current hero health.
- Hovering a dead hero portrait and pressing the Ping hotkey will notify team members of the remaining hero respawn time.
New Feature: Private Lobbies!
You can now set a password in your lobby to prevent uninvited guests from joining your game. Additionally, you can kick players from your lobby if necessary.
New Content: Skirmish Maps!
We have added three new Skirmish maps to the game! The maps haven’t been fully polished, but we wanted to share them with you anyway!
- New Map – Close Enemies (Beta): A small map, yet the direct path to your opponents is well guarded. Sneak around the center, and don’t get caught off-guard!
- New Map – Helix Web (Beta): Many paths lead to victory, but many powerful foes lurk in the shadows of these woods.
- New Map – Small Hassel (Beta): Tiny map without boss. Don’t assume this will get easy, though.
New Content: Joke Lines!
Continuously selecting the same unit over and over again will now trigger additional voice lines.
New Content: Campaign Artwork!
The campaign loading screens are now featuring beautiful hand-drawn artworks instead of a world map.
General
- Greatly increased CPU performance. We’ve been able to achieve as much as 51.88 % improvement in CPU performance, or about twice as good as at initial release. Note that the actual effect on your system might vary, as performance is measured in frame time rather than frames per second. Usually, that means that systems with „very bad“ performance should see much more improvement than systems with „rather good“ performance.
- Increased hero death timers from 24/29/35/43/53/64/77/91/108/125 to 25/30/35/45/55/65/75/95/115/135 seconds.
Campaign
Tutorial 1
- Added more sound effects.
- Removing finished tutorial steps from the quest list now.
- Fixed an issue that prevented music from playing in multiplayer.
Tutorial 2
- Added more sound effects.
- Removing finished tutorial steps from the quest list.
- Removing Anorium UI highlight after a short time to avoid confusion.
- Fixed an issue that caused the portrait to be missing for the cutscene introducing the second part of the mission for one player in multiplayer.
Mission 1
- Added a boss health bar for the Lead Assassin.
- Added cutscene talk animations for the Lead Assassin.
- Fixed an issue that caused a player without name being shown at the score screen.
- Fixed an issue that allowed players to have Lord Rupah dash through the fallen column.
- Fixed an issue that caused the boss health bar to stay after dodging its ambush.
- Fixed an issue that caused selection outline effects not to be shown on this map.
Mission 2
- Pathfinders are now inside cages and cage doors need to be destroyed in order to free and convert them.
- Added a boss health bar for Cragga.
- Fixed an issue that caused Pathfinders near bridge not to walk to their correct positions after respawning.
- Fixed an issue that allowed Killian to dash into the water.
- Fixed an issue that caused the Pathfinders to suddenly become invisible during one of the later cutscenes.
- Fixed an issue that caused the music not to play properly.
Mission 3
- Fixed an issue that caused rescued Spearmen not to play the correct animation.
- Fixed the portrait of selected tar pits.
- Fixed an issue that caused tar pits to be hidden by fog of war.
- Fixed an issue that caused selection outline effects not to be shown on this map.
Mission 4
- Added lava environmental sound effects.
- Fixed an issue that allowed the first boss to use abilities before their introduction cutscene ended (bad Pango!).
- Fixed an issue that caused Killian and Yin to appear with blueish glowing freshnel at the beginning of the third boss room cutscene.
- Fixed an issue with fog not fading out correctly in multiplayer.
- Fixed an issue with the impact effect of the Cave In ability of the first boss.
- Fixed an issue that caused players without names being shown at the score screen.
- Fixed an issue with inaccurate explosion indicators during the first boss fight.
- Fixed an issue that caused the dialogue about the first illusionary wall to trigger before the first boss was killed.
- Fixed an issue that could cause the dialogue after the first bonus room to trigger during the cutscene.
- Fixed an issue that could cause the dialogue lines at the tree bridge to overlap.
- Fixed an issue that could cause towers in the final fight to spawn on top of each other.
Mission 5
- Added 2D portraits for Mistral.
- Reduced difficulty when playing on Casual level.
- Fixed an issue that could cause attack waves to become stuck.
- Fixed an issue that could cause two Pangobolds to appear to be collecting Anorium at the same time.
- Fixed an issue that caused the music not to play during the cinematic.
Mission 6
- Lord Rupah now starts with Gale Strike as initial ability to prevent players from being blocked if skilling other abilities instead.
- Added a looping sound for the boss fight.
- Slightly adjusted camera bounds.
- Fixed an issue that prevented Shen’s fire elementals not to trigger the first cutscene.
- Fixed an issue with the third tree puzzle.
- Fixed an issue that caused the survivor quest counter not to update correctly.
Mission 7
- Players need to return to their base now to have Lord Rupah and the Construct arrive with reinforcements.
- Fixed an issue that prevented melee units from attacking some buildings in the second Undead base.
Mission 8
- Reduced the size of the first two attack waves.
- Gave Pangobolds some supplies to carry in intro cutscene.
Mission 9
- Rampage is no longer unlocked on Casual difficulty.
- Items are no longer placed in bases but dropped by defeated attack waves instead.
- Reduced starting resources by 50%.
- Friendly troops in second base are reduced by 50% and an additional tower has been added to the north side of the base in singleplayer.
- Second base will now be destroyed by a Construct barrage and not by an approaching army.
- Added new animations for Killian in the intro cutscene.
- Fixed an issue with overlapping music and updated cinematic music.
- Fixed an issue that caused the dialogue before the final boss fight not to trigger for both players in multiplayer.
Heroes
House Rupah
Paladin
- Fixed an issue that caused the tooltip of Lay On Hands to show incorrect damage reduction values for all levels.
Sparkmage
- Added a new sound effect to be played for each target hit by Emberstorm.
Undead
Fallen Marshal
- Decreased Skeleton lifetime from 30 to 15 seconds.
- Increased March of the Regiment life leech from 15/20/25 to 30/50/70 %.
- Increased The Way Is Shut cooldown from 60 to 90 seconds.
Revenant
- Updated Vengeful Strikes visual effects for better readability.
Wraith
- Decreased Empowered Dreadful Presence duration from 6/8/10 to 4/5/6 seconds.
- Increased Pallid Garden cooldown from 60 to 150 seconds.
Outcasts
Gnoll Chieftain
- Increased Master Of The Hunt cooldown from 60 to 90 seconds.
- Reduced Master Of The Hunt slow duration from 7 to 6 seconds.
- Reduced Master Of The Hunt damage from 150 to 120.
Shadowdancer
- Fixed an issue that caused the portrait animation to look odd.
- Fixed an issue that allowed using Assassinate with infinite range if there’s no valid path to its target.
- Fixed an issue that caused Shadowdance sound effects not to be played in multiplayer.
Myconid
- Increased Parasitic Swipe cooldown from 20 to 25 seconds.
- Updated Parasitic Swipe range indicator and visual effects.
- Decreased Fungal Growth radius from 500 to 400.
- Decreased Fungal Growth duration from 15 to 7 seconds.
- Removed Fungal Growth roots mesh to make it less noisy and added range and duration indicator.
- Decreased Spore Mushroom experience reward from 40 to 5.
- Decreased Spore Mushroom lifetime from 20 to 12 seconds.
- Updated All Is Connected visual effects to make it more visible.
- Fixed an audio issue with the Invigorating Symbiont ability.
Units
House Rupah
Knights
- Increased Valiant Charge cooldown from 20 to 35 seconds.
Undead
Banshee
- Reduced experience reward from 86 to 56.
- Increased Forlorn Song range from 600 to 700.
- Increased Forlorn Song research duration from 50 to 60 seconds.
Flameskull
- Reduced experience reward from 87 to 83.
Wight
- Increased experience reward from 45 to 80.
Naga Deathbound
- Increased experience reward from 45 to 103.
Minotaur Skeleton
- Increased experience reward from 45 to 133.
Outcasts
Gnoll
- Increased experience reward from 45 to 52.
Lizardfolk
- Increased experience reward from 45 to 62.
Dryad
- Increased experience reward from 50 to 80.
- Increased Goodberries range from 650 to 900.
- Updated Goodberries visual effects size and color to make it more obvious who gets healed.
Naga Lorebound
- Increased experience reward from 45 to 68.
- Adjusted player color brightness.
Naga Warbound
- Increased experience reward from 45 to 110.
- Adjusted player color brightness.
Cyclops
- Increased experience reward from 82 to 86.
Neutral
Construct
- Visual effect of Ancient Fortitude now ignores fog of war.
- Visual effect of Improve is now shown at specific positions for all House Rupah buildings.
- Fixed an issue that prevented the Improve ability from having any effect on training and construction speed.
- Fixed an issue that prevented the projectile impact effect not to fade out completely.
Skirmish Bosses
- Visual effects of Anorium Infusion are now applied to more units and buildings.
Buildings
House Rupah
Elven Enclave
- Increased construction time from 70 to 80 seconds.
Library
- Increased construction time from 60 to 90 seconds.
Watchtower
- Fixed an issue that caused the top mesh not to be rotated correctly.
Undead
Mausoleum
- Updated textures and materials for improved visuals.
Arcane Nexus
- Increased construction time from 70 to 80 seconds.
Boneyard
- Increased construction time from 60 to 90 seconds.
- Updated textures for improved visuals.
Labyrinth
- Updated textures for improved visuals.
Shadow Gate
- Decreased construction time from 100 to 90 seconds.
- Updated textures and materials for improved visuals.
Outcasts
Hoardbeast
- Reduced The Land Provides amount of Anorium received from 10/15/20/25 to 5/10/15/20 %.
Warbeast
- Fixed a missing material.
Grovebeast
- Reduced construction time from 110 to 70 seconds.
- Fixed a missing material.
Horn of the Titans
- Increased production time from 60 to 90 seconds.
Wooden Gate
- Fixed an issue that prevented selection outlines from being shown.
Maps
Echo Glades
- Changed spawn positions to be 100% the same, adding the same amount of trees within the same distance to the respective spawn positions.
- Removed the Runecaster boss, opening up the center area.
- Added new low level creep camps.
Thirsty Sands
- Changed creep camps and map layout.
User Interface
- Added hero portraits of allied players in Skirmish.
- Added the recipients of a chat message to be shown along with the message (e.g. all players or team).
- Added dropping items by right-clicking their inventory slot.
- Added selected hero abilities to the observer UI.
- Added option for always showing the observer summary.
- Added a percentage text for boss health bars.
- Added fade out for achievement notifications.
- Hero portraits are now sorted to always show heroes of the local player first.
- Role abilities that are unlocked through roles the player didn’t choose are now hidden.
- Increased the maximum chat message length from 40 to 75 characters.
- Player names and health bars are now permanently shown above heroes in Skirmish and Against All Odds.
- Reduced the size of control group icons to prevent them from overlapping.
- Removed snapping of main buildings to locations near Anorium mines, as players considered this feature to be more restrictive than helpful.
- Fixed an issue that caused speaker and spoken text to be shown until the next line is triggered after a cutscene was skipped before a following cinematic.
- Fixed an issue that caused the list of effects above the status window not to update if the current unit becomes deselected.
- Fixed an issue that allowed players to add hostile units to control groups.
- Fixed an issue that caused unit icons and selection indicators not to update when selected units change their owner.
- Fixed an issue with unit sorting in status window which also caused issues tabbing through subgroups.
- Fixed an issue that caused the counting scores not to stop if players rushed through the score screen.
- Fixed an issue that could prevent the cutscene skip progress bar from fading out.
- Fixed an issue that could prevent players from skipping cinematics after cutscenes.
- Fixed an issue that prevented the camera to focus on the location of a unit if that would cause the camera to exceed the bounds of the map (e.g. for idle worker buttons, double-selection).
- Fixed an issue that could cause unlocked passive ability icons to appear locked in the command grid.
- Fixed an issue that caused the Set Hero Spawn Site button to be visible in Campaign missions.
- Fixed an issue that occasionally caused boss health bars not to be shown on clients.
Menus
- Added tooltips for tutorials and campaign difficulties.
- Returning to the main menu after a match will now automatically select the same mode again.
- Allowed accessing (but not changing) hotkeys while ingame.
- Intro movies can now be skipped immediately when starting the game, and loading the game will begin afterwards.
- No longer showing player titles in lobbies, as they usually caused player names to be cut off.
- Updated score screen sound effects.
- Fixed an issue that caused the main menu campaign online/offline buttons not to remember their last selection when switching game modes.
- Fixed an issue that caused campaign loading screens not to scale properly on aspect ratios other than 16:9.
Graphics
- Added Salt Lizard critters to salty desert maps.
- Slightly improved the lighting of all maps.
- Improved textures and shadows of various units, buildings and environmental assets.
- Fixed an issue that caused the outline thickness of various selected units and buildings not to be updated properly.
- Fixed an issue with the visual effects shown whenever a unit left stealth.
Audio
- Fixed an issue that caused tutorial pointers not to play audio in multiplayer.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed a crash that could occur while having a unit selected that is being killed.
- Fixed issues with AI patrols on various campaign maps.
- Fixed issues with overlapping dialogues on various campaign maps.
- Fixed issues with animations, clipping and player colors in cutscenes on various campaign maps.
- Fixed an issue that caused vision not to consider line of sight on some maps.
- Fixed an issue that caused stealthed units to be entirely invisible for observers if the opposing team doesn’t have detector.
