Welcome the 13th iteration of the Wayward newsletter, featuring a long-awaited status update, showcasing mods, and other tidbits!
Status Update
Firstly, no, Wayward is not dead. Behind the scenes, but not super behind the scenes, we have been pushing updates to the development branch pretty much the whole time. Unfortunately, we ran into several design snags while attempting to rid the game of that pesky reputation mechanic. Read more about that in the last newsletter if you haven’t already:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/379210/view/3882727783075132076
In order to satisfy all the playstyles with the new rune/deity-based systems, we still had to cling on to flawed progression metrics that could easily be gamed and circumvented to min/max the difficulty all the while being nearly as tedious/confusing as the previous system. We are now scraping that plan and coming up with something completely different. Deities and runes will still be in the mix, but not as a means to curb difficulty, at least directly.
Our current plan is that progression in the game (as in, harder creatures, access to new/better materials) will work more closely like other overworld RPG games instead of creatures of all types randomly spawning around you all based around a flawed, magical number.
Instead, creatures will have territories that increase in difficulty the further away from your spawn point and the further away from your starting island. These creatures like to stay close to their territory and will no longer chase you half across the world. This will allow players to keep their current playstyle and progress further only when they want to (or they run out of resources/things to do).
More information on this system is coming up soon!
Tile Targeting
This hasn’t been the only thing we have been working on of course. We have also implemented tile targeting, meaning you can now hover over a tile and perform actions there using the action menu (via right-click), which means you can actually aim your ranged attacks now!
You can also action slot these types of actions as well to save a few clicks/key presses:
Improved Creature Control
Tamed creatures now have a symbol above them to easily spot which creatures are tamed or not. You can now also control a group of creatures within a small radius using new flute items which can give multiple creatures commands at the same time without having to try to navigate to each of them.
These are just a few small previews of what is to come in what has become the biggest major update to date! Sorry about the wait!
Mod Showcase
Check out some of the recent modifications the community has created!
Blood Rites by SKIPPY
Do something with all that blood laying around! Blood containers, blood drinking, vampires and more!
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3299372812
Windows Mod by TTastic
A very popular request, and a planned feature; TTastic does us all a favor and adds it into the game for us (for now!).
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3271896900
Unbreakable Goodies by fercoraya
A remake of the popular “Master Crafter” mod. It makes mastercrafted and relic items unbreakable.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3008033731
Feature Voting
We always like to draw attention to our feature voting site which serves as an informal roadmap for the game. Take a look and vote on the features you’d like to see next:
https://www.waywardgame.com/vote
Discord
To join in to discuss all of the above or anything else related to Wayward, join our Discord!
End of Windows 7 Support
Along with Steam earlier this year, Wayward, going forward will be required to cease Windows 7 support due to upstream software changes. This means the next major release will no longer be supported on Windows 7. That being said, there are technically ways around this and of course, we offer the latest major release versions dating all the way back to May 11, 2016 (beta 2.0.5).
Leave A Review!
If you have a few minutes, please leave us a review on Steam. We use any feedback we get to make the game better!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/379210/Wayward/
Thanks for reading and stay tuned!