Hi everyone!
With the Year of the Horse fast approaching, we would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year in advance.
Sands of Salzaar will be participating in the Year of the Horse Spring Sale! From February 12 to February 26, the base game will be available at a 60% discount (matching its historical low), and all DLCs will be 50% off.
New Story for Berserker
This story follows the Ursine tribe, whose future hangs by a thread after they are brutalized by a force even more savage than their own.
Now, as fate takes a sudden, violent turn, will he double down on this path, or will he seek a different way forward?
In-party Heroes Interactions
Added a brand-new in-party character interaction feature, giving heroes with different personalities and backgrounds completely new ways to converse.
Each character has their own story, and their relationships with one another are intricate. You can uncover these connections through their dialogues.
Backstories & Dialogues for Generated Characters
Previously, only the most renowned heroes had recorded stories. Now, many of the less important characters have their own backgrounds and personalities.
They too help bring life and color to the vast sands.
Improved the Attack Speed System
Previously, attack speed only affected the interval between your character's attacks.
We improved attack speed in a previous version, enabling it to affect heroes' basic attacks.
This time, we've taken it further: attack speed now affects most skills' fore- and backswing times as well as channeling durations.
We previously made it compatible with heroes; now, troops benefit from it too!
A Keyboard Control Mode for Combat
When using keyboard controls, movement is handled via WASD (or custom keybinds), while basic attacks are performed in place using the mouse or a bound key.
This can be enabled in the Hotkey Settings.
In the meantime, don't miss our bundle with Amazing Cultivation Simulator. You can grab both games with an extra 10% discount—the perfect chance to complete your collection!
The full patchnotes are as follows:
v1.2 Update Log
New Feature
\ Added a story arc for Berserkers, featuring three distinct story paths and all-new skill trees.
\ Added a brand-new in-party character interaction feature, giving heroes with different personalities and backgrounds completely new ways to converse.
\ Added over a hundred random backstories and dialogues for procedurally generated characters.
\ Added attack speed and reworked hundreds of skill effects. The basic attacks of heroes and troops are now affected by attack speed.
\ Added a keyboard control mode for combat on PC. This can be enabled in the Hotkey Settings.
Optimization
\ Greatly improved map loading times for much faster map switching. (Performance tests show roughly a tenfold improvement.)
\ Reworked the top UI information display to improve readability when obtaining large amounts of items.
\ Improved world map unit behavior logic, improving smoothness in late-game saves.
\ Improved the world map unit loading algorithm, reducing lag when large numbers of units appear.
\ Reworked the character pop-up dialogue UI, improving clarity and readability.
\ Restructured pathfinding and collision algorithms. This should fix issues where troops got stuck in walls and resolve other pathfinding problems.
\ Improved aura trigger checks for the user, which should reduce lag.
\ You can now rename randomized characters in the Intel menu.
\ Added a toggle for combat damage numbers in the settings, with options to customize which units' damage numbers are displayed.
\ Added a Screen Shake toggle, available under Settings.
\ The Berserker's Outburst (++++) can now be cancelled manually.
Bug Fixes
\ Fixed a bug where missing character attribute fields could prevent battles from starting, and then ultimately the game crashing.
\ Fixed an issue preventing the Tavern Girl from triggering quest prompts, which affected the Spiritmancer and Bounty Hunter main quests, among others.
\ Fixed an issue where scroll dialogues were misaligned on PC at non-16:9 resolutions.
\ Fixed a bug where character entries could appear blank when joining a faction.
\ Fixed a bug where some character action sets (e.g., hammer, harp, dual blades) lacked transition animations.
\ Fixed an issue causing skill tree lines to render incorrectly when node order was inconsistent.
\ Fixed an issue preventing auto-equipment updates for characters able to wield all weapon types.
Mod Support
\ Improved an issue where the Mod Editor UI could behave incorrectly after reloading mods.
\ Increased the amount of debug information cached in the Mod Editor UI.
\ Attempted to fix a crash that could occur when logs were refreshed via the console.
\ Now you can define how much each point in Strength, Agility, Stamina, or Spirit increases the corresponding character attributes in the initial settings.
\ Reworked the value configurations for Block, Critical Hit, and Dodge, allowing for more flexible attribute effect tuning.
\ Added new trigger types for character attribute fields.
place_add_stat_leader: Adds specified attributes to a location if the character is the location's faction leader.
place_add_stat_lord: Adds specified attributes to a location if the character is the location's Sultan.
\ Added a character attribute field [camp_永不叛乱] (never rebel), which controls whether an NPC can leave a faction or rebel due to low loyalty.
\ Added columns for randomly bound dialogues and randomly bound tags in the character template table, used to control background-matching dialogue and personality generation.
\ Added new built-in character attribute fields:
bf_无视敌兵碰撞: Ignore collisions with enemy troops.
bf_无视敌将碰撞: Ignore collisions with enemy heroes.
bf_无视己兵碰撞: Ignore collisions with friendly troops.
bf_无视己将碰撞: Ignore collisions with friendly heroes.
\ Added new in-combat queries:
[%this_buff_time:BUFF_ID%]: Returns the remaining duration of the specified BUFF_ID on the current source object. Minimum value is 0. Supports decimals. Buffs with infinite duration return 999999.
[%this_buff_time_s:BUFF_ID%]: Returns the remaining duration of the specified BUFF_ID on the current source object, same as this_buff_time, but as an integer rounded up.
[%aim_buff_time:BUFF_ID%]: Returns the remaining duration of the specified BUFF_ID on the current target object. Minimum value is 0. Supports decimals. Buffs with infinite duration return 999999.
[%aim_buff_time_s:BUFF_ID%]: Returns the remaining duration of the specified BUFF_ID on the current target object, same as aim_buff_time, but as an integer rounded up.
\ Added skill tag [ignore_dumb], which controls whether the skill can be used while silenced. Note: Skills previously using the attribute [无视沉默, 1] need to be migrated to use this tag.
\ Added channeling and casting action settings in the skill table. Prefix an action with a half-width exclamation mark "!" to allow its casting speed to be affected by attack speed (shortened or lengthened).
\ Added combat command settings in the skill table. Prefix a skill command time with a half-width exclamation mark "!" to allow its cast time to scale with attack speed.
\ Added new combat commands: block_act_atk_rat, play_sk_act_atk_rat, timeline_atk_rat, and timeline_anim_atk_rat.
These are variants of the block_act, play_sk_act, timeline, and timeline_anim commands, allowing bind duration, action playback speed, and skill command speed to scale with attack speed.