Protectors of the Light,

We’re happy to share the latest update to Age of Darkness: Final Stand - Malice Mayhem!

The “Malice Mayhem” update introduces a range of new Blessings, Hardships and Malices to alter your next battle, providing new strategic pathways or create obstacles to overcome in your quest for survival.

To help any new players entering the Veil for the first time - Blessings, Hardships and Malices can play a big part when coming up against a tidal wave of Nightmares. So how do they work, and what is new in v0.12.2?

Blessing are an upgrade acquired after surviving a Death Night. Choose 1 of 3 random Blessings to support your run, feeding into your strategy and gaining a new advantage. They can range from improving construction and increasing XP gained by Heroes, to buffs for units holding the line against the hordes of Nightmares. Blessings are cumulative and can be stacked, so don’t worry about losing a blessing when selecting a new one.

New Blessings:

• Blood of my Enemy - When an enemy is slain, gain a chance to spawn burst of Healing. Provides a great synergy with melee only, supporting replayability if players want to invest more in army instead of buildings.
  
• Change of Heart - Buildings destroyed by Nightmares have a chance to turn nearby Nightmares into allies for a short period of time. It is also an opportunity to use Crushers against themselves - we have taken advantage of the tech from controllable Nightmares during Mission 08 in the Campaign, and brought that into Survival Mode.
  
• Way of the Blade - Melee units gain Damage, Shred, Armour and HP, however their production cost is increased. An awesome way to provide player an opportunities to strength their melee strategy.

New Blessing available in v0.12.2


Hardships are a difficulty modifier, providing custom options at the start of Survival to make a game more challenging and unique. These Hardships can range from never gaining a Blessing after surviving a Death Night, to losing the game the moment your Hero is killed. Additionally, each Hardship will increase your final score when completing a game of Survival.

New Hardships:

• Grim Command - Based on the Death Night and your level of difficulty, you may encounter one or more Elite Nightmares during your defence.
  
• Veil Bond - Acquire a second Hero from the same faction and enjoy using the abilities of both Faction Heroes! This can cause your late game to become weaker and increase the level of difficulty when paired with the hardship of keeping your Hero alive. Also in Multiplayer once released, if both players have both of their Faction Heroes there could be 4 Heroes on the map at any given point.
  
• Permanent Empire - No longer having the ability to sell your building could add some friction when building out your base, causing a higher sense of agency and future planning when decision making on base expansion.

The Hardship “Grim Comman” can cause Elite Nightmares to join the fight


Malices add some unpredictability to the start of each death night, providing a negative effect forcing you to adapt and react to challenges. Their purpose is to improve the attacking Nightmare hordes and disadvantage the player during these events. Each affects the game in different ways, whether in granting Nightmares damage upgrades against buildings, crippling resource income, or gradually removing the XP progress for player units. Defeating a Death Night will normally remove a Malice.

New Malices:

• Necro Nightmare - Slain units within your army have a chance to turn against you by coming back to life temporarily.
  
• Fear Burns - Horror is now more... horrifying! Units will lose health over time when they are Horrified, adding an interesting layer of complexity and difficulty when horrified.
  
• They are Many - Villager-occupied buildings have a chance to spawn nightmares when they’re destroyed, elevating the pressure of leaving Farms & Resource Gathering building alone as it may cause additional pester waves.

New Hardship “Veil Bond” - Players can acquire a second Hero from the same faction

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• There is a known issue that could occur when alt-tabbing, the Alt key can lock causing unexpected behaviour which requires pressing the Alt key a second time to return to original state.
  
• There is a known issue where during a Death Night if Nightmares encounter a blockade over a period of time Nightmare stacking could occur.
  
• Observed an issue where during a Death Night where Nightmares are stacked, Target Priority may lose functionality.
  
• Observed an issue where Aurelia’s Crimson Lightning has performance issues when cast in a high-density enemy area.
  
• Observed issues with our pathfinding system on local unit avoidance and fog avoidance.
  
• There is a known issue that could occur when alt tabbing the alt can can simulate being held down. To remove this bug simply press alt when resuming gameplay.
  
• Observed an issue where the Final Fight in Mission 10 music loop stops playing.
  
• Observe issues with the Catapult and Spitter landing VFX not aligned to the Z axis.
  
• There is a known issue with the ability system where on a low occurrence triggered Hero abilities may go on cooldown without casting.
  
• There is a known issue that could occur when casting a spell ability it may not go where the desired location was cast.

Where possible please ensure all drivers are updated to ensure the best and smoothest performance.

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We greatly appreciate everyone who has taken the time to let us know about these bugs and crashes you’ve encountered. If you come across any bugs or crashes in the future, please report them to us either through the Steam forums, our Discord server[discord.gg] in the ‘player-support’ channel or using the in-game bug reporting tool.

Till next time Protectors of the Light…

AoD Social Links:
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Have a question about the game? We have a handy FAQ we’ve posted on the Steam forums that you can view. If your question hasn’t been answered there, we’ll be doing our best to keep up with questions here, on the forums and our official Discord server! [discord.gg]

Age of Darkness: Final Stand