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Greetings Exiles!
Coming hot on the trails of our previous content patch, conveniently titled Followers I, and as announced in our producer letter, we feel now ready to deploy on all platforms our next game update: Followers II!
This update stems from a month-long collaboration with our Testlive community, that kept us sending feedback over four revisions and helped us improving the update we’re releasing today. Among these changes comes a very long and oft-requested feature, AI stances! We have also added a command system for your active follower, which will let you give direct orders to your companion.
There’s more changes and improvements that come with these new additions that will generally improve how AI reacts and interacts in the game. We have also included a couple of commonly requested quality of life changes that will make your adventures in the Exiled lands even more amazing: you can now have a companion and a horse active at the same time, and while riding you can also drag any unconscious NPCs!
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With this new update we are also releasing our newest cosmetic DLC pack: The Architects of Argos! Build stunning cities and gleaming temples of shining white marble. Adorn them with elegant statues and refreshing fountains to make your base look more impressive than ever, and follow suit with new mount saddles, armor pieces and weapon sets! You can read our announcement to see what’s included in this new DLC pack.
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Thanks again for your amazing support, and stay safe!
New follower behaviors!
You can now give your followers a brand new set of engagement rules and tactical preferences to better suit your playstyle!
Accessed via a new option in the interaction wheel, you can now assign different behaviors to your thralls and pets. Divided into two sections (Engagement and Tactics), this will give you better control than ever on how your armies react to incoming threats.
Please note that these new options are for your thralls and pets who are set as base defenses and not actively set as your follower (to see which new changes apply to active followers, you can skip a few sections and go straight to the new Follower Command System!)
Engagement behaviors
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Under this new menu, you can now choose and customize different rules of engagement for each of your followers. These new options are:
Guard Area
Follower will only attack when a hostile engages with them or any friendly presence within their detection radius.
Guard me
Attack those that directly attack you or those hostiles that you engage with in combat.*
Attack all enemies
When subtlety isn’t part of your master plan, just let your armies know about this option. They will engage with any hostile that enters their detection radius, old-school!
Attack nothing
If you want them to know engaging with any threats might be above their gruel pay-grade, choose this option. Any follower with this behavior will not retaliate against hostile activity.
Attack and Chase Distance
You can set at which distance your thrall or pet will detect hostiles (Attack Distance), as well as the distance they might move (together with some new aggro systems) from their designed guard spot while pursuing their target (Chase Distance). These two settings open a new submenu with a range of options, from Lowest (5 meters) to Longest (50 meters).
Tactics behaviors
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Within this section, you can set which tactical choices will be preferred by your followers:
Stand and defend
With this option, your followers will stay firm and keep the designated position against any hostile activity.
Prioritize melee
Followers with this tactic assigned will try to deal with enemies up-close and prioritize equipping the shortest range weapon they have available in their inventory.
Prioritize ranged
This tactic will make your thrall opt for long-ranged engagements, prioritizing ranged weapons in their inventory when attacking an enemy.
New Follower Command System!
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By Crom! You can now give direct orders to your active companion. Politely ask them to move, or rudely ask them to annihilate any hostile targets within the press of a button!
Aim and press the interaction button to move your companion to the designated location or attack an enemy. Double press that key to make them stop any activity they’re engaged on (and double press again to make them resume that activity). Press it three times and you will ask your companion to return to your position.
You can also hold the command button to open a new radial menu where you can select any of these settings individually!
Some important Quality of Life additions!
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We’ve been listening to the feedback you’ve all been sending us since the release of the mounts update and we’ve integrated the two most requested changes! You can now have an active companion as well as your trusty steed, as horses don’t take the active follower slot anymore! And while you’re out and about on your ride, don’t forget that you can now drag any NPCs you’ve left unconscious!
New cosmetic DLC pack available: The Architects of Argos!
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Build impressive cities and temples with the Argossean building set. It includes vaulted ceilings, a new and unique way to build tall pillars (with bottom, middle and top pieces) and special attention has been paid to the insides of buildings with the inclusion of new placeable pieces. You will also get your hands on three stylish new horse armors, three fresh armor sets and nine new weapons, such as the Argossean Great Axe.
- New follower stances!
- New follower command system!
- You can now have a companion and a mount active at the same time!
- You can now drag unconscious NPCs while riding a horse! Yee-haw!
- AI improvements!
- New DLC pack: The Architects of Argos!
- …and more!
Known issues:
- We’re aware of an issue with some building textures that might show as partially whitened. Our team is looking into it.
- Deployed a number of optimizations regarding server logs.
- Fixed a number of crashing issues.
- Fixed a number of crashing issues related to AI.
- Added a number of optimizations in regards of characters and AI.
- Fixed an issue that would allow building inside certain locations.
- Fixed an issue with inconsistent return of materials.
- Added new follower behavior settings!
- For the first time, you can customize the rules of engagement of your follower defenses as well as their tactics when in combat.
- Added new command system that will allow you to give direct orders to your active follower.
- This can be controlled via a new radial menu (default button is the interaction key), or giving direct input (by single pressing to move/attack, double press to cancel).
- Added new animations to provide visual feedback to the command system.
- Added and reworked AI behaviors to deepen and improve the playing experience.
- New DLC patck: The Architects of Argos!
- Fixed an issue that would cause the placement brush of placeables to snap to the edges of all assets.
- Fixed an issue where the replacing of ramps and sloped roofs from specific DLCs would work inconsistently.
- Fixed an issue where Riptide light attacks would deal double damage.
- Fixed several instances where friendly and/or hostile AI would become non-responsive towards external threats.
- Reworked several AI components, such as hate list (list of hostile targets) and leash distance (distance they’re allowed to chase their target).
- Resolved several issues where followers would have troubles teleporting to the player.
- Resolved a number of issues that would prevent thralls from using weapon combos.
- Improved AI awareness. They can now detect threats and targets visually and via sounds.
- Fixed a few issues that would allow cheesing bosses’ AI using the leash behavior.
- Fixed a number of issues regarding the Warmaker’s Champion AI and attack patterns.
- Fixed an issue that would cause wights to spawn in unbeatable ways during the Wine Cellar boss fight.
- Fixed an issue where followers would not teleport correctly when player characters do.
- Fixed an issue where KO’d NPCs would teleport for a short distance if interacted with no Bindings equipped.
- Fixed a targetting issue where NPCs would target the foundation beneath instead of the character.
- Fixed an issue where NPCs with a bow would not retaliate against long distance attacks.
- Fixed an issue where NPCs would not attack the player while standing in a particular spot.
- Chilled Godbreaker Plate armor value was inconsistent compared to Godbreaker Plate. This is now fixed.
- Fixed an issue that would cause player characters to get stuck on a chair if placed on a foundation.
- Falling on spikes should no longer negate fall damage.
- Hearts can now be exchanged for rewards at Hannuman’s Grotto again, as intended.
- Stamina cost for dodging has been reduced for medium and light armors.
- Redesigned the Accuracy 40 perk. It is now called Flattening Shot and will allow your heavy shots to push back or knock down targets.
- Improved navigation on interaction radial wheels. You can now use key or button inputs to ease your navigation.
- You can now drag unconscious NPCs while riding a horse.
- Mounts no longer take a follower slot. This means you can now have a follower and a horse at the same time.
- Added character animations when issuing commands to followers.
- Added new radial menu options to control follower behavior.
- Added new follower command menu.
- New key bindings have been added to control the new commands.
- Implemented a smart system on the Interact key when using a controller. Now, if there are valid interact targets, this binding opens the interact menu. Otherwise, the command menu.
- Added tips and hints related to the new Followers systems in loading screens.
- Fixed an issue with the pets’ radial menu.