This patch focuses on adding mechanics that will limit the amount of things you can do each week.

One of the more common complaints I get is that there are way too many things you can do each week if you want to play optimaly.

To get the most out of each week, you have to talk to all NPCs, kill all respawning enemies, clear all dungeons and more. This means that getting through a single week can take you up to three hours. 

Why some don't mind this and are ok with this level of grind, most people are not. Personaly, I just don't do everything every week because you don't really need to play 100% optimaly, but a lot of people are naturaly trying to do everything they can each week.

Another problem that raises from this is the massive difference in strength between different players. After one year, you can have anywhere between about 50HP to 6000HP. This is a massive difference and it makes making new combat encounters very difficult, since they will usualy end up way too hard, or way too easy. It's not that great of a deal for Sinathir, since you are not meant to clear everything right from the start, but getting too strong too quickly can make players skip way too much content by accident.

My goal is not to remove the ability to get strong and overpowered quickly, but I want to stop people from getting overpowered by accident. Even after this update, you will be able to get strong pretty fast, but you need prior knowledge of the game to do so. And if you don't have this knowledge, you can still get through the game without problem.

Another thing I added was escaping from battles. 

Now to the mechanics them selves:

Escaping from battles

I added two new items. Firecrackers and smoke bombs. You can buy these from Tadeas. Put them in your inventory and use them in combat if you want to escape. Doing so will stun the enemy and give you few seconds to run away. 

Not all fights can be avoided this way. Bossfights or scripted fights can't be avoided. Also, if you run away and the enemy catches you again, the fight will reset, meaning the enemy will have full HP again.

I had to manualy go through all enemy encounters in the game and edit them. If you find any encounter that doesn't behave as it should, please report it together with a screenshot of said enemy on the map.

Limit gauges

I added new limit bars into the main menu and the status screen.

I also added a simple popup that shows up the first time you open any of these two screens. This will tell you how to switch between screens and acts a part of the tutorial.

Thanks to this, you will always know how close you are to your weekly limits. All of your limits reset every week. All weekly limits can be increased in some way. Ichor and church membership affect most of these, as well as your age. I will now explain all those bars from top to bottom.

Healing limit

The amount of healing you can receive from items is now limited. It is always slighly higher than your maximum HP and can be increased by raising your wellness. Ichor and church membership also affect this limitation. This will discourage players from trying to clear areas that are too dangerous for them and force them to get stronger before trying to do so. Bear in mind that magic doesn't count towards this limit, which makes it much more useful. Another thing I chaged are the bandages and first aid kits. First aid kits now heal only one target, but are now limited only by the healing limit. Bandages now show up on your body for every 1/5 of healing you received. A little visual representation of how much damage you sustained and healed.

Weapon XP limit

This limits the amount of XP you can get from fighting per week. It gets increased every time you level up any weapon skill. This will make clearing the entire map less useful, since you will not get any XP from them. Loot is unaffected. It should also make players level up multiple weapon types instead of focusing on just one weapon type. 

Dungeon entrace limit

This limits the amount of dungeons you can clear each week. Dungeons now reset every time you leave them, meaning you can clear the same dungeon multiple times each week. This means that you can't really leave a dungeon once you enter, because doing so would reset the dungeon and you would have to clear it again from the start. 

This will have multiple effects. This will mainly stop players from having to clear all dungeons every week, since they can clear only one at the start of the game. It will also make dungeons more dangerous and preparation more important, because leaving a half cleared dungeon will mean you either won't be able to enter it again that week, or you will have to clear it again from the start.

Social chat limit

Old hangout system was removed and will be replaced with different system in the future. You now gain social points right from the start. These are now used for chatting with NPCs.

Just walking up to an NPC and talking to it won't give you anything. No mood bonus, no relationship points. You will now have to select the "Chat" option.  Doing so will cost you one social point and give the mood and relationship bonus like before. You can chat with an NPC only once a week, but you can chat to multiple different NPCs, if you have enough social points.

Thanks to this, players won't have to walk to every NPC on the map to get the mood and relationship bonuses. Talking to two NPCs will be enough at the start of the game. This limit is increased by age and your renown, so you will be able to talk to more NPCs as the game goes on.

Food limit

This is nothing new and was in the game before. But now you can see if you ate something and you don't have to try eating to get the popup that you are already full.

As I said, these limits should make player growth slighly slower, but also make the game progress quicker, since you won't have to do all the content that refreshes every week. It also serves as a list of things you can do every week. Once all those bars are full, you know you can go and rest or work since there is not much left to do that week.

The rest

There are some minor bug fixes I did, but I also added one more cutscene. It plays the moment you leave the story dungeon. You can see the cutscene even if you already cleared the dungeon on your previous version. Just go to the location that has the entrace to the Mr. Whites hideout.

I also added a wait option into combat. It just skips your turn, but can be useful if you want to level certain skills or if you don't want to waste ammunition and let someone else attack.

Full changelog:

• Added limitations to some game mechanics to make the game less grindy and to make it go faster
• Added option to escape some battles by using special items
• Removed the hangout system
• Re-introduced the chat system, which replaces automatic bonus gains from meeting NPCs
• Dungeons now reset upon leaving them
• Added new cutscene that plays after leaving Mr. Whites hideout
• Minor bug fixes

Previous version

Previous version didn't get its own blog post. Here is the changelog:

• Added several building projects around the map that will alow you to construct shortcuts that can be used when you are on a bike
  
• Added two morality related perks
• Ichor makes your morality decrease every week depending on its level
• Zacharias has been made weaker. May take effect only on new playthroughs
• You can now sprint without any perks or potions. Perks and Agility increase your sprint speed
• Speed potions are now considered alcoholic
• Disabled waypoint creation in some interior areas
• Alcohol and drugs now decrease your morality

I just want you to pay attention to the sprint part. You can now sprint at the start of the game, but your speed will be really low.  Increase your agility to get better at sprinting.

These are some really big changes that affect the core gameplay massively. There will be bugs and balance issues and I would really apreciate your feedback. Be it bug reports or balance suggestions. Be sure to report anything you find, because I can't catch everything by my self and there is a high chance that unreported bugs or oversights will stay in the game for a long time if you don't report them.