Live Patch: Factions Rework Is Live (v2.0.0-beta.5674)

TL;DR HIGHLIGHTS

• Factions 3.0 is live: the Factions tab is now a fully operational wire where the Factions of Hiltcrest send Requests and each leader has a story of their own.

• Heroes now talk to you: conversations on the Rapport tab, a hero waiting for you at End Week and rival guild leaders with something to say.

• Party Focus opens any party over the War Table with its roster, orders, chemistry and actions in one place.

• Thirty-two protective class skills now work properly in battle.

• Battle Doctrines can be assigned to specific roles.

• Settings ▸ Alerts puts every popup the game opens on its own under one tab with three presets.

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Factions

• Factions 3.0 is now fully live. Very exciting and marks a big W for depth-maxxies. In short, the entire structure behind how the Faction System works has been rebuilt from the ground up, opening up a ton of room for activities and future story telling. As of this launch, the Factions are each about 30x deeper in terms of content and memory with a completely reworked procedural setup (not AI writing), and introduces 24 unique Townsfolk. It's one clear channel for all the powers of Hiltcrest, then the town and the Front Desk, with every letter, Request and person the guild deals with kept in one searchable place.

NOTE: As always, this is just step one of many, so hit me with ideas/dreams/gripes, I'm all ears.

Okay, the deets:

• The Factions tab opens the Wire: a channel for each faction you have met, a Town channel and a link to the Front Desk. Bold channels = unread letters. Each channel's header keeps your record with that faction: Requests answered and lapsed, missions won and lost.
• Requests replace the old stream of faction letters. Each faction you have met sends about one Request a year, plus its yearly ceremony once your standing is high enough: the Summit and the Big One at 200, the Tournament of Houses at 150, the Gala and the Muster at 100 and the Pilgrimage at 50. At most two Requests are open at once.
• NOTE: requests used to blast your inbox, now story arcs compound over many years and you aren't necessarily beholden to doing everything that comes in asap to stay on top of things rather than just slamming quests. The benefit here is that each one is a bit more important and a bit more meaningful.
• Letters compile into one thread with a candle that counts down your 4 weeks to reply. If you stay silent it counts as the letter's decline at full cost and the writer is slighted for 8 weeks. The letter tells you which choice silence counts as before the window closes. Remember to be nice (or not).
• The Military and the Temple still send missions. Replies like Send Best Party, Escort the Pilgrimage or Send a Squad Below open a squad picker at the start of the next week for 1 to 3 heroes. Standing of 500 and 750 opens harder missions that pay up to 2,640 gold plus standing and renown.
• Faction missions now say "Graded on" before their stat chips. A chip like "STR ×2" grades your pick and does not raise that hero's stats. A better grade multiplies the rewards from 0.6x (Poor) to 1.5x (Perfect). The result letter's Outcome line and the week summary list what the mission paid or cost, standing included.
• The quest board is now posted by Townsfolk, 25 new unique residents of Hiltcrest who have much deeper memories and long-term goals. Faction leaders, office holders, Townsfolk and the leaders of rival guilds all have conversations now. You get one word a week to spend in town (like the Rapport system). More will come from this change as each Townsfolk is a wonderful opportunity to tell some stories.
• A finished job raises the poster's regard by 3 and a failed one lowers it by 5. Townsfolk write to the Town channel: an introduction when they arrive, thanks or a complaint after a job and warmer letters as they come to trust you. Click a poster's name on a quest to have a word with them.
• Open anyone in a channel's People list to read their dossier: bio, agenda, quirks, relations, letters and their sun and moon signs (with an Astrologer on staff you also get the reading). Speak with them to spend the week's word or make a promise. Each faction leader has seven conversations that open as their regard for you grows.
• Every rival guild leader has three conversations on their guild's profile under "A word with…". They use the same weekly word and can raise that guild's trust by up to 15.
• Each channel's rivalry web is a night sky: stars sized by standing, gold lines for factions that pull together and dashed red lines for those that push apart. "What they know" is drawn as the constellation of the faction's leader and each volume you open lights another star. The oath sheet and "Ask for…" (a faction's services and what you hold from them) are in the channel too.
• An open letter hangs a painting of where it was written, with the sender's banner and a caption such as "Lowmarket, Hiltcrest". There are 13 paintings: six Hiltcrest districts, the six faction seats and the guild hall at night.
• Share Intelligence is now under Write in a faction's channel. It is the quickest way to raise standing with a faction before it becomes Friendly.
• Existing saves keep their standing, oaths and contracts. On the first load, old faction invitations and event letters still waiting for a reply close at no cost. A yearly ceremony you already attended this year is not sent again.
• The Wire and Requests run in online leagues too. Each guild gets its own Requests on its own schedule. SO, what happens to current games when the new Factions system turns on?
• Kept: standing (same number and tiers), vendors, permanent upgrades (including Black Hand Membership), Exalted perks and old letters. Faction letters move from the Front Desk to the Wire.
• Closed silently, no cost: unanswered old asks: the yearly invitations (Tournament, Summit, Shadow Auction), disputes, noble social letters and unanswered Crown Mandates. Anything already answered keeps its result.
• Converted: this year’s ceremonies come back as Requests, minus any the save already had, so none repeats.
• Exclusive quests: any already on the board finish normally. The Military’s and Temple’s become Request missions. The other four retire.

Rapport

• The next step of the Rapport system is now live! Heroes in a hard moment now get a written conversation on their Rapport tab. A hero who is grieving, was let down by a broken promise, sits on the bench, grows restless or has a contract coming due offers a short scene. The reply you pick is the week's quiet word, so whether it lands, glances or is rebuffed decides how the scene ends.

• Heroes now remember things you did for or to them: a kept or broken promise, standing by them in grief, a rebuff, a contract renewal, keeping them on through a serious wound, six weeks on the bench, naming them captain, selling their friend or swearing their ambition. Each conversation opens with a line that recalls one of these and a hero never repeats a line until they have said the others.

• Conversations can name something only that hero has: the quest they last went on, the friend they lost, the guildmate they can't stand, the hardest foe they ever killed, the Drive they are still chasing or a serious wound.

• A hero's voice changes as their Bond changes. Conversations open cold at Estranged or Distant and warm at Close or Devoted.

• A Devoted hero may ask for a word and confide one thing. A hero hiding a flaw tells you what it is and a talk that lands reveals it. Anyone else shares something of their moon sign. A rebuff closes the subject for 8 weeks.

• End Week can now close with one hero waiting for you, their portrait over a painted backdrop as their opening line types in. Your reply spends the week's word, the same as answering in the Rapport tab. "Not now" is free. At most one hero comes each week, at least 2 weeks apart for the guild and 6 weeks apart for the same hero. The scene card shows the hero's Bond, their last three talks and the Astrologer's read when an Astrologer is on staff.

• NOTE: If this becomes too much/annoying, you can change how your dudes talk to you in Settings ▸ Alerts, go to the a Camp scenes row: Come to me or Wait in the week summary. Set to wait, the hero becomes a "wants a word" row of the week summary that opens the scene.

• After you answer, the result stamps in under the ending: Landed, Glanced off or Rebuffed. Morale and Bond meters fill or drain to their new values and a crossed Bond tier is named.

• A quiet word can now ease bad blood between two heroes. A hero with a rivalry, grudge or distrust of 60 or more toward a guildmate they quested with in the last 4 weeks may want to talk about it. A word that lands weakens the tie by 20, a glancing one by 5 and a rebuffed one strengthens it by 10. A landed word can turn a rivalry into a friendship of 60 or settle a distrust or a grudge outright.

• Heroes also mention a friend who is injured, away, benched or newly fallen and a rival they just shared a quest with.

• A hero's right word now has a hidden half. Their sun and moon set only part of it. Their traits and any visible flaw set the rest and a hero with none of those has their own way. Faction offices and Townsfolk work the same way: their manner shows while their trait words stay hidden.

• Every landed or rebuffed word reveals one piece of the hidden half. "What you know" lists it under "What moves them", such as "Hears plain words" or "Their own way".

• The Astrologer now gives a read instead of marking the answer. With an Astrologer on staff the talk card shows "Your Astrologer's read": a line for a hero's sun and one for their moon, or one line for an office's or a Townsfolk's manner. The crystal-ball mark on one approach is gone.

• A Devoted hero now turns the nemesis down the week it asks, with a feed line saying so and no false "extend their contract or lose them" alert. When a hero's bond turns a rival's approach away the feed says that too.

• NOTE: Custom games have a new Rapport switch under Custom Settings ▸ Morale & Rapport, on by default. Turned off, there is no Rapport tab, no quiet word or town word and no promises, conversations, camp scenes or grief. Open promises are released at End Week with no penalty and faction standing climbs only through quests and letters. Bond you earned is kept for when you switch back on. Leagues always play with Rapport on.

Rivals & the Proving Ladder

• Every rival guild leader now has something to say to you. A rival guild's profile offers "A word with" its leader: three conversations for each of the 31 leaders. The first opens unless their guild is hostile (trust below -10) and the others at trust 25 and 70. Each reply spends the week's town word and the talks can raise the guild's trust by up to 15 in all.

War Table

• The painted War Table's cards are now parchment notes with dark ink: the week card, hover cards, drop notes and the legend slips. A region panel opens on a painted view of that region.

• Each job on the painted War Table sits on a parchment token whose rim shows its state: plum while open, gold once one of your parties took it, ember red while it ends within two weeks and dashed while you have not worked that region yet. Place names draw over the marks.

• The War Table has + and − zoom buttons, a Reset view button while zoomed and a Key in the corner that names every mark.

• Your gatherers now show on the War Table. Each region with gatherers at work carries a basket mark with a count, a red rim while one is hurt and a faded look while they all idle or are away. Hover it for each gatherer's risk and click it to open the region.

• The Field tab lists Gatherers afield by region. A gatherer hurt or killed on the frontier shows in Dispatches and on the week card. A hurt gatherer reads "Hurt · Nw to heal" at your guild's real healing rate and one away on a training trip or a Salvage Run reads "Away".

• Settings ▸ Display has a new War Table Board choice. Painted shows the new painting of the frontier and Traced keeps the line map the table used before. Classic artwork always uses the traced board.

Parties & Training

• Clicking a party coin in the left side bar on the War Table now opens Party Focus as a card over the map, so another coin switches parties and the same coin closes it. "View full party" and the camp icon on a party's header in the Parties tab open the same party in a full-screen camp scene.

• Party Focus has one Actions strip that says what each press did: Auto-equip counts the pieces it put on, the Commander fill names who it added and the captain menu marks the best leader. Captain and fill changes can be undone. You can also recall a patrol, cancel a drill, Lock the lineup or Substitute a hero.

• Party Focus's Standing Orders work in place: doctrine stance, automation switches with Pause and Resume, When idle and the auto-train window. Clicking the Tactician's or Commander's portrait opens the order sheet or gambit rules right under the row.

• Party Focus shows a breakdown when you tap Effective OVR, a Chemistry card that flips between Key Factors and What They're Saying and a Combat Readiness check for Tank, Healer, DPS and damage coverage.

• "Give orders on the map" closes Party Focus and readies that party's coin for the next quest or raid you pick. Nothing goes out until you deploy.

• Expedition party cards have a Get ready button when a member is training. One confirm lists who is training and turns off every member's auto-training. Tick Stop now to also cancel the sessions under way so the party can deploy this week.

• Heroes and parties now show how trained they are as a percentage: each scouted stat against its ceiling, averaged, with 100% meaning fully trained. It shows on training and roster rows, in the dossier and on the party card, which also names the lowest member.

NOTE: Hit me with any "it'd be cool ifs"!

Map & Combat

• Thirty-two protective class skills now properly work in battle. Taunt, Sanctuary and other shield, protection, evasion, immunity and guardian skills are all clean af. Each now raises a ward that cuts the damage nearby allies take and the battle view shows it as a protective cast.

• Battle Doctrines can now be applied on role basis. Each order line has a Who choice (Everyone, Tanks, Melee, Ranged or Healers) and only members who fight in that role carry it, so it costs nobody else memory. Each role may also carry one order of its own without spending an order slot: use Draft a role order on the doctrine sheet.

• You can now save formations outside the Tactician tab. The CCL Loadout shows chips for the three system formations and every saved line and "Save this line" keeps a line you drew there. The Rival Challenge offers your saved lines beside the system ones once five heroes are named.

• Each party on the Raid Formation panel shows its formation line under its card with chips to switch it (chips need War Room Tier 2). "Save raid formation" stores your party pick under a name so one chip recalls it.

The Tower

• The Tower Loadout saves named layouts. "Save layout" stores the board under a name and a layout chip stands the thirty on it again. Heroes a layout does not name wait unplaced.

Heroes & Dossier

• The Dossier's Equipment card is now usable. Repair one piece or all of them, Auto-equip best, Strip all or swap any slot from storage without leaving the Dossier. A Gear link opens the Gear tab on that hero.

• The Dossier shows the hero's Training Focus and its charges on the Profile tab and in the header strip. You can pin a standing focus from there too.

• You can now plan a hero's road before it opens with the Plan this road toggle on every locked road. Until that road opens the hero stops asking for a decision, then the ✦ returns with a Planned chip on that road's card.

• Heroes who have fulfilled their Ambition carry an Ascended auto-tag on the roster. Hover the chip to see the legend title they earned. The tag works in the roster and Party tab filters and in roster search.

• Milestone ceremony cards show each skill's recharge in weeks and a small board footprint with whether the cast is contact, ranged or near the caster. The same reach word appears in the dossier's "In this fight" line.

• Frontier Warden is now a Hall of Fame title. A hero who holds the Frontier Warden honor is inducted at the next End Week, including heroes who earned it before this update.

Staff & Buildings

• When a hero retires into a staff role, every role shows who holds it (skill, age and contract years left) and how your hero compares, such as "+12" or "-5". A full role offers "Take their place": the current holder leaves when you sign (after any release fee) and your hero takes the seat. With celebrations on, the choice plays as a ceremony that tells the hero's story before you seal the role with a press and hold.

Guild Commander

• Your guild commander now writes to you about your heroes, at most one letter a week: a hero whose promise you just broke, a hero who began grieving or the hero longest on the bench who minds it. Each letter has a "Talk to" button that opens that hero's Rapport tab.

• A lineup promise you make to your commander counts on the same kept and broken record as your promises to heroes and shows a Week Summary row like theirs.

Armory

• The Gear tab has Auto-equip this party when the hero filter is set to a party. It runs Auto-Equip Best for each member in turn, never gives two heroes the same spare and never moves a locked piece.

Custom Difficulty

• Custom Settings has a new Undying Roster switch. When it is on, every hero on your roster is Undying: a blow that would kill them becomes a critical injury instead on quests, raids, the Tower, sieges, garrisons and breaches. Injuries still keep heroes out of action and rival guilds are unaffected. It also works in a league founded with it on.

• Two new run options join the New Game screen under Rival Guilds. Rival Guild Names founds every rival guild under a fresh name drawn at the start of the run, while their leaders, faces and conversations stay the same. Rival Pecking Order deals the rival guilds into the opening table at random, so any of them can start as a powerhouse or a newcomer. Both are off by default, solo only and carry into Settings Codes and New Game Plus.

Saves & Cloud

• New Game can now start you among the buildings of one of your saves. Under Run Options ▸ Starting Facilities pick a save, then Full Levels (every building at its level and quality, with Steam achievements and leaderboards off) or Worn · Level 1 (only the buildings a new guild can build at Guild Tier 1, at low quality, with achievements on). The source save is never touched.

• On Steam, your three most recently played league saves now sync to Steam Cloud, so a new computer can pick up your league game. Deleting a league save also deletes its cloud copy.

Settings

• Settings has a new Alerts tab for every popup the game opens on its own, with three presets (Every popup, Digest and Quiet) and one row per popup in seven groups. It replaces Skip Celebrations and the Pop-up Alerts list and Settings search finds each row by name.

• Alerts are set per device, not per save. The first save that ends a week after the update sets the starting choices from its old Skip Celebrations and Pop-up Alerts settings.

• Quiet still opens the big moments: a garrison replay where a hero dies or the wall is overrun and a death send-off. A skipped Goblin Siege or Surface Breach arrival still lands on the War Table or the raid board with its dossier open.

• This one will be important later this month: Settings ▸ Gameplay has a new World Bosses switch for each save, on by default. Off, no World Boss visits that save and the realm goal pays nothing. Turn it back on and a boss still in the realm returns with its ladder where you left it and every realm goal tier you are owed is paid.

• A new Long history option under Settings ▸ Gameplay ▸ Guild History keeps the full records of up to 600 fallen and 600 retired heroes instead of 200 and 150. Save files grow larger. Desktop only.

Surface Breach

• With a lantern lit, a Surface Breach party can re-form its line between chambers with Re-form the line. The new line holds until you change it again and an ambush in the dark still scatters it.

• A lit lantern also shows what waits in the next chamber: each enemy and how many, plus the ground they will fight on.

Multiplayer Leagues

• In a casual league, an Academy graduate you release unclaimed or a hero whose contract lapses now joins the league's shared free-agent pool. Every guild in the league can bid on them from the next week. Ranked and Academy-only leagues are unchanged.

• The Quartermaster's gear bonus, Featured Posting, frontier patrols on the War Table and the Deepforge Compact now work in league play. Featured Posting's extra applicants arrive as private recruits for your guild.

• A league guild handed to an AI commander after weeks without a turn, or removed by the host, gets a Reclaim my guild button on the red banner. It takes back the same guild, division and standing with the save you have open, then the catch-up plays the weeks the commander held. The banner and letter warn not to choose Leave, which deletes the league save.

Look & Feel

• The top bar now fits on one line on every desktop width, on both looks and in every language. The word and town chips show a glyph and the words left to spend, the utility icons sit in one tray and Appearance, Notepad and Edit Layout live under a More button with their hotkeys.

• On the desktop game the Bestiary has a Change art button. Pick a PNG of 5 MB or less and it replaces that creature's picture from your Portraits folder. Reset to default brings the original back.

iPad TestFlight Updates

• The iPad build now opens on the Commander's Desk, where you stand in the Frontier, Hiltcrest or the Hall and open a door into each screen. Classic stays in Settings ▸ Display ▸ iPad Interface and a player who already picked Classic keeps it.

• Pinch or use the zoom ladder (Frontier, Hiltcrest, Hall, Party, Hero) to move between places.
• The Hall is the painted guild hall. Its doors stand on the painting's features and This week asks sits on the floor with a card for each thing that waits on you.
• Hiltcrest is now a town of the game's buildings: the sparring pit, archive, training yard, armory, workshop and market stall each open their screen.
• The Frontier is the War Table board itself, with your party banners down the left and a lens switch for Quests, Raids, Holds and Supply lines.
• The Party level is the Muster: drag a hero card from the hand onto an open seat that fits its role, or tap the card and then the seat.
• Hold the wax seal to advance the week. The week then lays out as cards (the ledger, who came home, letters and hero news) before "Begin week".
• A hero's Dossier fills the screen in landscape and a swipe turns to the next hero.
• A Tower battle fills the whole screen with the rails in drawers and a thumb arc with a large play and pause disc.
• Markets, Recruit, the War Table and the CCL open in their own floating window you can drag, size and dock.

• With a Magic Keyboard, ⌘1 to ⌘5 walk the Desk's places and rooms, ⌘[ steps back out, ⌘K opens the jump palette and ⌘↩ seals the week. Holding ⌘ lists these shortcuts and a trackpad pointer shows tooltips.

• An Apple Pencil now writes on the War Table while fingers still move the map. A line stays as an ink note, a loop opens the region it circles and a line ending on an open quest sends the armed party there through the usual deploy review. A scribble rubs out ink or stands the armed party down.

• Siri and Spotlight can open the game at a place, such as "Open the War Table in Gargadusa's Tower". A Commander's Desk widget for the Home Screen shows your guild, the date, your gold and what this week asks.

• With a TV or second display attached, a battle on the Desk goes up on the TV by itself. The iPad shows Slower, Play or pause and Faster, a game controller does the same and unplugging the TV brings the board home.

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Factions

• A faction contract now pays its own faction four times the standing it used to. A contract's weekly risk roll costs gold but no longer that faction's standing.

• Each faction's entry contract that needs a party or a scout now opens at Neutral. Noble House Patronage and Temple Healing keep their Honored and Friendly gates.

• A won sponsored raid gives its sponsoring faction +15 standing.

• Share Intelligence now gives +10 standing below Friendly and +15 from Friendly on, down from +25. NOTE: Climbing with letters alone is slower.

• Share Intelligence sent to the Temple, the Nobles or the Underworld no longer moves your standing with the other two. All three must stand at 350 together for The Codex & the Ritual whisper chain, which leads to the true ending. Every other rivalry still ripples as before.

Map & Combat

• Nine class skills were reworked:

• Paladin's starting skill is now Hammer of the Faithful, which deals 220% damage to unholy and undead enemies and 140% to everything else. Lay on Hands was a heal and a Paladin fights as a Tank, so it never fired.
• Seven healer skills now heal instead of striking: Holy Paladin's Hammer of Mercy, the Bard's Restoring Chorus, the Balance Monk's Pressure Point Revival, the Tide Shaman's Gentle Current, the Arch Priest's Holy Nova and the Oracle's Fate's Reprieve and Starlight Vigil.
• The Chronomancer's Rewind now deals 150% damage to one enemy, since the Chronomancer fights at range and its heal never fired.
• Nobody loses a skill. A hero who carried one keeps it with its new effect at the same rarity and cooldown. Some Rank V names changed with them.
• Renew (Priest) and Hammer of Mercy (Holy Paladin) now recharge in 2 weeks instead of 3.

• Heroes no longer cast Light, Steady, Strong or Aegis Ward at the start of a fight with the enemy across the board. The ward waits until an enemy is within 4 hexes, or 2 in Crown Cup and Rival Challenge bouts, so a tank like the Knight advances with the line.

• The heal from Grave Bulwark, Soul Leech and Mana Bastion now takes the deep Tower's heal cut and shrinks on a withered target, like every other heal.

Parties & Training

• Party drills now roll the injury risk their intensity shows: 2% a week per hero at Standard, 5% at Intensive and 10% at Extreme, cut by up to half by your guild's injury reduction. A hero hurt in a drill leaves it for 1 to 2 weeks (2 to 4 at Extreme). If fewer than two heroes are left the drill is canceled and the feed says why. A repeating drill pauses and starts again once everyone is fit. NOTE: Drills can now hurt heroes.

• Guild injury prevention now also lowers the weekly training injury chance. The Sparring Pit's 3% (5% from its second level) and the Military's Garrison Support upgrade's 10% apply to solo training, capped at 50% combined like quests and raids. The Training panel shows the reduced risk.

• Dual-class heroes now earn the training class bonus (+50% program XP and an extra Focus charge) from their second class as well as their first. On level-up, the second class's main stats grow at the secondary rate, about 7.5% more stat growth per level.

Heroes & Dossier

• Heroes now grow their class's primary and secondary stats more often as they mature and age. Veteran recruits arrive with stronger primary stats and weaker off-class stats at about the same OVR.

• Taking a New path at a milestone ceremony now costs one rank instead of resetting the new skill to rank I. A rank IV hero at the level 40 milestone takes up the new skill at rank III. Reawaken is unchanged.

Staff & Buildings

• Quest support staff no longer stack. Each role (Cook, Diviner, Chirurgeon, Chronicler and Cartographer) gives the bonus of your single best staffer in that role who is not detached, so Cooks top out at +7.5% party OVR. Extra staff of a role still serve as backups and Garrison detachees.

• When a hero retires into a staff role, each job's aptitude follows the hero's own stats. Jobs that suit their stats keep their score and the rest score lower the further they sit from the best fit. The Staff Aptitude Preview explains what sets each score.

• Staff stationed with a Tower garrison detachment stop growing at their potential tier's ceiling (for example 70 for a C-Tier cook), the same cap the seminar uses. Staff already above it keep their skill.

• Training trips for gatherers now cost 30% of the old price. A skill-40 gatherer pays 141 gold for Guild Workshop Study and 264 gold for Traveling Expert's Tutelage, down from 470 and 880.

Academy

• Academy graduates now roll a flaw like any other recruit. A rolled flaw can stay hidden until it shows itself. With Guaranteed Flaws on, every graduate arrives with one. Graduates delivered by rival guilds roll flaws too.

• Academy instructors now teach at the tier of their current skill instead of their potential: A-Tier from skill 82 to 93 and S-Tier from 94. A retired S-potential hero with skill 85 teaches as A-Tier.

• A trainee's category potentials keep a past high roll only in a semester where their potential tier rose. In other semesters they reroll from the current tier, so far fewer B and C trainees graduate a full tier up. A Prodigy Watch upgrade still holds to graduation. Trainees never graduate below the potential tier they enrolled at.

• Releasing an Academy graduate now gives rivals a claim chance.

Rapport

• A badly wrong word can now be rebuffed in any situation, not only the four sensitive ones. A word picked at random is rebuffed about 1 time in 6, up from about 1 in 33. In short, guessing a hero's word is riskier.

Rivals & the Proving Ladder

• Hostile and Distrustful rival guilds now accept trades less readily. Their bar for material trades rises by 5 points and their chance to accept a gear sale or hero transfer drops by 20 points. Hostile guilds buy your heroes at 80% of the price, as Distrustful ones do.

The Tower

• A Tower hero a protection saves from death now comes home critically injured, as on quests and raids, instead of walking home unhurt. Party fame can no longer clear that injury.

Custom Difficulty

• Under Immortal Roster your heroes' age counts up on the Dossier with an Ageless tag, while they still never decline or retire. A hero who leaves the guild leaves at the age they were frozen at and switching the setting off resumes everyone's aging from there.

• Under Immortal Roster, renewals, extensions and rival offers price a hero as no older than Prime (34), so an ageless veteran no longer gets the Senior or Veteran discount.

Multiplayer

• AI guilds in a league re-roll their quest, raid and Tower targets every year at their current tier, so a guild that moves up starts climbing the Tower. AI rival heroes also gain a season of experience at each season start, as single-player rivals do.

• The league server now decides quests, raids and Tower floors on the same fight number your own fight rolled on, penalties like poor chemistry or a wrong element included. League Crown Combat League bouts count gear, synergies and guild bonuses as single player does.

• League market prices stay between 60% and 180% of base value, as in single player. Prices move up to 8% a week and 15% more at a season change.

• A guild that joins a league starts with its AI rivals unscouted.

• League parties with fully invested traits, faction buffs and fresh top gear no longer lose part of their power to the league server's cap.

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Parties & Training

• Each expedition party has one Training section, on the Parties tab and in the Quest board's orders editor, with "When idle: Train / Stay ready" beside the party's auto-train window.

• Get ready and Disable all auto-training also turn off a party's own training switches: Train when idle, the auto-train window, a gambit train rule and a repeating party drill. Disable all auto-training acts only on the heroes the Party filter shows when a filter is set.

• The Training screen:

• The bulk training bar docks above the trainee list instead of covering it and the program cards show how many ticked heroes can start.
• The trainee list has more room: the extra header and the Potential box are gone and the filters share the sort row.
• The Start Training button stays pinned under the Configure options.
• The Training Efficiency banner shows your real bonus instead of +0% and its tooltip lists each source. The header reads "Training Grounds Tier N · Training Efficiency +X%".
• The Prospects tab opens a panel titled Prospects, with the Guild Academy tier and trainee slots underneath.

• The Bench button is a small chair icon in the corner of each hero row and benching a hero from the Parties or Training list shows an Undo note for a few seconds.

• Party and Tower muster pickers show each hero's attack elements and can filter the roster by element.

• The Grimoires page shows a labeled chip for each grimoire a hero has used: Capricorn, Salvation, Endurance, Potential, Duality and Metamorphosis.

Parties & Recruiting

• A party card that can't deploy because heroes are training names them ("Bram and Sera are training") and offers a Get ready button on the Quests and Contracts lists.

• The selected party card on the Quests and Contracts lists wears a bright ring and a Selected tag. Clicking it again deselects it.

• The quest and contract details no longer get pushed off screen at larger text sizes. The deploy footer takes at most 40% of the screen and folds down with its own toggle.

• The Parties roster picker has a new Sort: Idle and heroes idle for 2 weeks or more show an Idle chip with the weeks. The seat picker shows each hero's potential tier and marks injured, resting and training heroes.

• The quest board's Ambition and Protégé pickers list heroes by party, with heroes in no party last.

• Sending a party warns you when a hero's contract ends before the mission does.

• When End Week releases a raid reservation, the raid panel shows why until you dismiss it or reserve again.

Guild Commander

• The Commander tab's Standing Orders card has one Pause automation panel. It holds the guild hold, the Hold for Descent with the week it began and "Parties paused: X of Y" with every party's switches below.

• Every party has the same four automation switches everywhere: Quests, Contracts, Ops and Gambits. Pause all turns all four off and lets work under way finish. Resume turns Quests, Contracts and Ops back on and leaves Gambits off. The Front Desk's Commander's Orders chip pauses and resumes a party the same way.

• An auto-quest party that stays home says why in the feed: a missing role, a hurt member when its orders say to rest if hurt or no quest on the board that fits its orders.

• Risk Tolerance chips in a party's orders read Low only, Medium or lower, High or lower and Any, since each sets a ceiling.

War Table

• You can send parties from the War Table map before you build the War Room. The quest Muster picker, Send, coin drag and the drop card are open to every guild. Region Control, Supply Lines, outposts and patrols still need the War Room.

• A region panel opens on one line saying who holds the region and the race, such as "you 6 · leader 35". The hold's effects and how to build presence fold under "What control changes here".

• Surveying has one name everywhere: "Not surveyed", "Surveying · 2/5 quests" or "Surveyed", with a "Surveyed +5%" badge. The Field tab's list is now Who holds what.

• With raids still locked, the Raids section says why ("Raids unlock at Guild Tier 3" or "Raids require War Room (Tier 1)") with a link to the Guild Hall when the War Room is missing.

• Hovering a New quests line on the week card lights that region's new quests on the map. The War Table's Sage page explains how to read the board and give orders from it.

Rapport

• Clicking the Weekly Word chip opens a short list of the five heroes who most need a word. Heroes on the Reserve bench sort last.

Heroes & Dossier

• The dossier's attribute tier badges show the ceiling, such as "Arcane potential: D-Tier (ceiling: 45)". Primary stats are marked with ★ and secondary stats with ☆. A stat above its ceiling explains that it is innate class talent.

• A contract in its final year shows the weeks left (such as "12w") instead of "1 year". Commander advice, HQ table talk and the Expiring chip flag a contract only in its final 13 weeks.

• The release section names every reason a hero can't be released, offers a Stop training button for a hero in training and shows the fee on the Release and Buy Out buttons.

• A hero who joined from another guild shows an Earlier row in the Dossier's season table for the quests they played elsewhere and their carried-over seasons read "with previous guild".

• A revealed Gambler can now make Amends: a 2,000 gold pledge, then 15,000 gold earned after the vow and the Reckoning quest. The flaw clears and the hero becomes Frugal.

• Guild ▸ Memorial splits In Memoriam and Honorable Retirement into their own tabs, each with its count. The Hall of Fame legend window has an Open dossier button.

Recruiting & Scouting

• The Guild Block and Trading Block lists show the Cmdr column with your Guild Commander's score for each hero. Click the header to sort by it.

• Auto-dismiss also clears scouted recruits on every board whose report shows a tier below the floor. Each board has its own floor, starting at Same as Adventurers. Dismissed recruits can be restored from the Dismissed view. Watch scouts no longer pick recruits you have dismissed.

• The Scouting Complete report can be sorted By board, By tier or As scouted.

• Recently Scouted free agents who have left the board read GONE (or SIGNED), gray out and say on hover where they went.

• The scout Priority Order list takes a typed position and a drag handle, so a row can jump straight to the top.

Markets & Trade

• The Exchange has a new Why filter for materials whose price moved for one reason last week: Bid up, Pushed down, Settling up, Settling down or Drift. A material's price tooltip shows what guild trades value it at.

• The Guilds list shows each guild's Asks/u price when you filter to a material, with an Asks sort that ranks the cheapest first. Every guild price under vs market shows its percent of market beneath the gold, colored green, gray or red.

• The All, Material, Adventurer and Poach chips on Guild Trading filter the whole tab.

• Rival guild trust shows its score beside the tier name, with a bar toward the next tier and a line such as "18 to Allied". A rival's dossier says what the next trust tier changes in trade terms.

• A small purchase on the Exchange labels its surcharge Recent buys and the tooltip explains how your purchases this week and last raise the price.

• The Front Desk's Price Trends opens with the week's four biggest risers and fallers. The Exchange no longer repeats the movers in a footer.

• The Craft tab shows a ✦ count when new crafting commissions are posted.

• The Sell contract picker lists heroes on the Reserve bench, On the Block or tagged for sale first.

• Material Sources lines name where each raw material really comes from, or say Market only.

Armory

• The Quartermaster has an Improve gear button that fills every open improvement slot on equipped gear at or above a grade you pick with the improvement that best suits the wearer. It uses materials on hand only.

• Bulk Sell has Select All, Common / +Uncommon / +Rare picks and shift-click to select a range. It asks before it sells, showing the gold the batch will bring and how many Rare or better pieces it holds.

• Upgrade Advice can queue a ready craft right away with the top crafter who has queue room.

Reports & Rosters

• Battle reports at End Week have "Skip remaining reports (N)" beside Continue.

• The Transaction Ledger shows one week at a time with a Week picker and a Category filter. The Weekly Statement writes out what Financial Health, Weekly Net and Gold Runway mean.

• The Registry's Adventurers table has a new Bond column. Right-clicking one of your own heroes there opens the adventurer menu.

• The Registry's Stats All view shows Tower Floors Cleared, Flawless Floors and Hero of the Day, for the career or the season.

• The Stats screen's SV column explains what counts as a save. The Year-End Realm Clutch award is renamed Realm Heroics.

Map & Combat

• The battle hover card lists every status a unit carries with what it does this round and how many rounds it has left. Hovering a row in the HP panel shows that unit's card.

• Hovering an obstacle, hazard or high-ground tile shows a terrain card with its rule.

• Battle reports say why each injured hero was hurt: "Dropped to 22% mid-fight", "Finished at 18% health" or wear and tear.

Factions

• The dispatch picker labels its stat chips Graded on and a dispatch result letter lists what the dispatch paid: grade, standing, gold, renown and materials.

Academy

• Academy history shows graduates who left your guild at the level, OVR and age they had when they left. The Academy Reputation tooltip explains what moves it.

Rivals & the Proving Ladder

• Hovering a rival guild's temperament lists what it does in trade, poaching and raids.

Staff & Buildings

• The training trip picker shows the skill each trip grants and, for gatherers, their weekly output before and after the trip.

Surface Breach

• The Salvage Run's Search all button reads "Search the rest and walk out" and all four Salvage Run buttons explain themselves on hover and long-press.

• Call up the best in the Surface Breach muster seats the five strongest eligible heroes.

The Tower

• The Floor 100 victory scene plays on the ceremony stage, with the Heroes of the Tower as a parchment roll call of portraits (the fallen in sepia).

Multiplayer

• The league orientation card and help entry list what is "Single player only for now", now 14 systems.

• League errors read as full sentences in a styled card instead of a browser popup. The league trade panel is translated in every supported language.

• A league guild's profile page has Propose a trade and Open My League buttons.

Interface

• Settings ▸ Display ▸ Idle party reminder offers Off, Badge and Confirm. Confirm asks before the week ends while a combat-ready party with no orders sits at home.

• Go-to hints come with a link that takes you there and lore alerts in the feed get a View in Lore Archive button.

• Sage's Wisdom remembers which pages you have read on this computer and has a Web wiki link in its footer.

• Reduce interface effects also skips card flips, intros and other one-time reveals.

• The Compendium's Station Required line names the building tier that unlocks the recipe, such as Requires Workshop T2.

• Hero list rows on Training and Parties keep level, age and rank in fixed columns.

• The version label on the Front Desk can be selected and a click copies it.

iPad

• Small buttons across the game have finger-size tap areas and button groups give a light haptic tick. The system's Reduce Motion setting stills press animations and decorative loops.

• A press and hold on a War Table mark opens its full card. With a party coin armed, a held quest's card shows that party's odds.

• Markets, Hall of Fame, CCL and Options fit the iPad screen. The Exchange list takes 55% of the screen so asset names fit.

• Battles play the sampled battle sounds instead of synthesized tones and do about half the work while paused.

• A hero portrait shows its upload option only after a press and hold.

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Map & Combat

• Injury reductions work on quests and in the Tower again. The Sparring Pit, the Chirurgeon, your captain, Lucky Dodge, Battle Hardened, injury-reducing traits and the Commander's guard give a hero a chance to shake off a wound, up to 50%, as they already did on raids. In the Tower the Cautious strategy, provisions and injury prevention count the same way.

• Party-wide defense passives such as Aura of Protection, Unyielding Presence and Banner of the Just now raise every hero's health in battle on quests, in the Tower, on raids, in the garrison and at the Crown Cup, capped at 20%. They did nothing there before.

• Healers keep healing when their party has battle orders. The doctrine sheet no longer offers attack and hold orders to Healers.

• The Tower battle log shows a healer's group heal as a heal on each ally it lifts instead of a hit on the boss and those heals count toward healing done.

• A quest fought on the hex board shows the power ratio the fight actually used, plus the odds a hero falls before protections. The Power Advantage line no longer overstates how safe the fight was.

Parties & Training

• A wounded hero stops solo training and leaves a party drill, whether the wound came from a Crown Combat League bout, a Sparring Pit match or anywhere else. Auto-training picks up again after they heal.

• A hero on the Reserve bench no longer re-enrolls in auto-training at week's end.

• The Auto-train idle button respects the guild's maximum program length on a hero's first enrollment.

Heroes & Dossier

• A hero whose contract runs out while on a faction contract, a dispatch, an event, a garrison, a patrol or a sortie no longer leaves mid-mission. They stay until they are back and leave then unless you extend the contract.

• A fallen hero's memorial shows the same Quests Completed count as their dossier. A hero bought from a rival counts only the quests played for your guild.

• A retired or fallen hero's last season is labeled with the year they left. A former member who sat in the free-agent pool over a year end has that season archived.

• Hall of Fame legends who were released, sold, traded or poached keep their career record instead of reading "lost to time".

• Dossier ranks use the same potential-tier colors as the rest of the game.

Reports & Rosters

• Registry Status: Ambition lists every hero on an Ambition journey, including heroes On a Path.

• A hero who "took a hit" in a quest but fought on is no longer counted as injured.

• When two heroes reach a level milestone in the same week, each gets a level-up celebration in turn.

• A hero's career sheet counts every week lost to injury and Surface Breach runs count as raids in career stats.

• The Weekly Report header prints thousands commas and a week with no outgoings reads 0g. The Treasury ledger's Category filter lists every category in your language and bulk sales appear as Loot Sale in the week they happened.

Guild Commander

• Editing the orders of a party linked to an Orders Template no longer unlinks it.

• A commander who dies, including on a Request mission, leaves a letter written for that day, "If I do not come back", instead of a farewell that reads as if they were still alive.

• The Commander no longer sends a raid-reserved party on a Military joint operation.

Parties & Recruiting

• Party cards and the Quest Board's unavailable-party lists show the whole reason a party cannot go, not just its first word.

• Reserve these parties on a raid is disabled, with the reason, when a reserved party won't be home before the bounty expires. Before, the reservation was accepted and then dropped at the next End Week.

Custom Difficulty

• With No Party Restrictions on, auto-quest, gambit, patrol and Commander's Orders deploys send parties the Quest Board calls ready instead of demanding a Tank, a Healer and a DPS. Formation slots show Any role.

• With No Party Restrictions and Limit to one Tank and one Healer both on, Commander Fills All fills a Tank, a Healer and a DPS when one is free.

Challenge Runs

• Never-Ending Patience now keeps every hero alive as the challenge promises. Every hero on your roster is Undying. Runs already in progress get it on their next load.

Factions

• Temple Sanctuary Auto places heroes hurt this week on the same End Week.

• The Sage's Whisper Chains page names each chain's factions and the standing the game really checks. Writing Share Intelligence to one of the three powers that keep an old secret together says why the other two stay unmoved.

Markets & Trade

• The Treasurer card and Weekly Gold Budget card in Markets ▸ Orders are readable again.

• The Treasurer's weekly purchases no longer keep your buy prices raised twice as long as your own purchases do.

• A material's 52-week high and low no longer read 40% too high while it is HOT.

• Crafting commission rewards appear in the Transaction Ledger.

• Allied rivals no longer order gear your guild has no building or crafter to make.

Rivals & the Proving Ladder

• Rival heroes on trade offers and trading blocks show their real scouted OVR. Rival heroes inflated in existing saves are corrected when the save loads, so some trading block numbers will drop.

Recruiting & Scouting

• Recruiting's Guild Block tab no longer freezes the game for several seconds when you open or sort it.

• A finished scouting report on a rival's hero is no longer erased by the automatic cull. A scouted hero on a rival's Trading Block shows an OVR and wage that match their stats.

• The Guild Hall link on a recruit's panel opens the building the recruit needs. A recruit's Staff tab no longer shows the Astrologer's Party Assessment with no Astrologer hired.

War Table

• Frontier Wardens on patrol now give their bonus: +5% each to the patrol's defense (up to +10%) and a costly incident wounds for 1 week instead of 2.

• The Bridge, Mountain Pass and The Eastern Workings open when you click their towns on the map.

• Clicking a rival leader's coin opens its trade offers before you build the War Room.

Crown Cup

• The Crown Cup results card shows your finish (Finalist, Semifinalist, Division Finalist or Out in the Round of 16) instead of "4th Place" for every place from 5th down. Crown Combat League finishes read by their label alone in the year-end review and the feed.

• During a running festival the Loadout board shows your live lineup after substitutions. The live festival view scrolls on short windows.

Rapport

• The A word unspent chip updates as soon as you change a hero's party or captaincy. The contract extension screen shows the hero's real Bond.

The Tower

• Leaving the battle arena after a Tower fight lands you on the battle report once instead of twice.

Surface Breach

• Grave Bulwark, Soul Leech and Mana Bastion heal in Surface Breach rooms, as their text promises.

Staff & Buildings

• The retirement preview's Instructor row shows the skill the hero actually gets.

Multiplayer

• In a league, rumors, resignations, rival stories and storylines draw only on AI guilds. Nemesis poaching and rival-on-rival events no longer run, so heroes stop vanishing.

• In a league, AI rivals keep contesting War Table regions after the first year. Other human guilds no longer count as a region's protector or answer your assault's call for allies.

• Trades with AI rival guilds in a league no longer change only your copy of their roster. Buyouts, offers for their heroes and contract sales to them are blocked with a note saying why. [NOTE?: whether AI guild trades will come to leagues later]

• AI guilds restock their trade goods each week at the single-player rate.

• Catching up on missed league weeks:

• It stops at each popup you have not seen, such as the Crown Cup finale and result and contract alerts.
• It no longer drops your deploy orders.
• Heroes you win at a league signing arrive however long you were away.

• Crown Cup in a league:

• A champion also gets the Grimoire and next year's renown buff.
• A placing's renown bonus applies from the first week of the new year.
• A late result from an earlier year no longer overwrites your current qualification.
• The CCL seats every league guild from Year 1.

• Festivals in a league replace wounded heroes from your named reserves, then your bench, with the Reserve bench last.

• The gold on a league quest report is the gold your guild keeps, with no clawback a week later.

• Server-side injuries no longer bench a hero who looks healthy on your screen.

• League recruits no longer start with stats above their growth ceilings.

• A league Guild Duel needs five different heroes still on your roster and a Duel Challenge Not Sent report says why.

• A guild that leaves its league keeps playing under the league's rules, keeps Crown Cup and festivals running and gets back lapsed heroes as the same hero.

• Two guilds in one league can no longer share a name.

• Joining a passcode-protected league from inside the game works.

• A guild that has left your league reads (departed guild) instead of a raw code.

• A hero you release to the league pool whose answer never comes back settles as released after two weeks instead of returning to you after another guild may have signed them.

• In a casual league the contract alert says lapsed heroes go to the board. Garrison requisition income no longer shows in a league, where it is never paid.

• A league week that hits a server error pauses the league with a banner instead of freezing it. Resuming a paused timed league starts the turn timer.

• A league with no turn timer that nobody has visited for 90 days is removed from the server.

• A won sealed bid moves your commander's trust like a signing. AI material offers respect No Rival Trade Offers.

• Black Hand Membership can no longer be bought in a league, where it did nothing.

Look & Feel

• The top bar's text follows Settings ▸ Appearance ▸ Text Size in the CleanOS and Parchment themes.

• Your guild's crest on the main menu no longer shows as a blank box before the emoji font loads.

Interface

• The desktop window fits your screen and can be made smaller, so 720p screens and scaled laptop displays reach the bottom of every screen.

• Windows 11 Smart App Control no longer blocks part of the game at launch.

• Playing through Proton or on Steam Deck uses the GPU again without extra launch options and emoji no longer show as empty squares.

• Escape closes the week summary again after a construction choice.

• Selecting the first applicant on the Recruit board or the Registry no longer shifts the list sideways. The CCL Registration screen's Roster column no longer runs off the right edge on narrower windows.

• The Market's buy and sell box scrolls on short screens and the Armory's gear columns are no longer cut off.

Language & Translation

• The Spellward passive reads Mana Bastion in 16 languages.

• The expired-contract warning for a hero away on a mission names the mission in your language.

iPad

• A tap on a War Table mark no longer leaves a hover card stuck on the map and the drop card no longer opens under the War Council.