DD#168 Civilization and Barbarism news - [Neolithic]To the End

Hi, everyone. Welcome to another week's developer's diary. We are taking a break from all those flesh and meat kinds of stuff (or maybe not.)

This week, we shall cover some more civilized topics (or maybe not).
When we talk about civilization, what's the first thing that comes to our mind? Sid'Meier? No, wait, we can't do that or maybe someone will sue me. So, let's cover something else. :P
That is the toilet!

The flush toilet, more than any single invention, has 'civilized' us in a way that religion and law could never accomplish. There are many toilets in the game. However, previously, they are all located in fixed locations and can only provide you with dirty water. That essentially makes our civilization progress hinted. Thus, let's fix this in this week's updates. First, they are now turned into furniture you can deploy anywhere. Second, they gained the real-life functionality that allows you to poop in them. You can select any of your teammates to create poop with toilets. With some effort, no matter what they ate yesterday, no matter how short time has passed since the last time they poop, they can eventually make some poops. Sometimes, it just requires more effort than other times. Some interesting text has also been added to the game to describe how much effort they spend on those toilets to just make such a makeshift biological weapon for you before a battle. Have fun! :)

Meanwhile, do you know who still does not have toilets yet? Oh well, according to a news report from The Moscow Times, there is still about 20% population in rural Russia does not have safe toilets. And, yet, Putin would rather spend money on missiles to attack hospitals and playgrounds in Ukraine. What a monster. No wonder some Russian Orc soldiers are stealing toilets in the game. The good news is, that you may now also find those stolen toilets after defeating them. :)

Alright, I am not going to write another 300 words about toilets. Let's move on to other content of this week.

Another major part of this week's updates is in Katan, the lawless town in the Sayinas Island. As a town with all kinds of people exiled from the sociality deep in a desert, it still feels way too civilized with those outlaw cowboys. It needs to be more savage and wild than this. Thus, in the Katan Desert, you may now find some Bandit Berserkers.

They worship blood gods. Instead of robbing people of wealth, they prefer murder and blood sacrifice. Thus, unlike some more civilized bandits, you can't negotiate with them or try to threaten them (that may sometimes make them even more excited.) They will also appear in procedurally generated dungeons set with bandit enemies. Thus, overall, they are making all those areas more dangerous than before.

However, more dangerous foes also mean more loot for you. Here you may even find which blood god they are worshipping.
Are you ready for the truth?

This religious book seems quite harmless. It seems to teach Confucianism, a quite harmless belief from ancient China that teaches people to be polite, maintain a high moral standard, be kind to others, and achieve harmony. What can be wrong?

EVERYTHING CAN GO WRONG!
There may be something lost in translation. So, here are the explanations. Confucianism teaches people to be “仁” (Ren) and “義” (Yi). Ren usually means kind and merciful while Yi usually means honorable and honest. However, if you look deep into those Chinese characters, you will find some dark secrets. "仁" can be cut into two characters "人" and "二", "人" means people, and "二" means two. Now, have you realized how horrible it is? "仁" basically can cut a person into two pieces! It's an ancient assassination technique! Now, what about "義"? It can also be cut into two characters "羊" and "我." This is a monstrous strength you can learn from the true teaching of Konfucius! Yes, those berserkers call him Konfucius (or Kong), not Confucius because that's much cooler and can distinguish them from those who failed to understand the "true" meanings hidden in the words! (If Game Workshop asks, it totally has nothing to do with Khorne. :P)
More historical facts: Confucius was actually a quite strong man when he was young. Some ancient books even claim he towers nine feet six inches or 2.8 meters tall! No wonder everyone is so willing to sit down to listen to his teachings. :P
As we now have two Confucianism heresies in the game now, (the other being the faith of Conrk and Monrk), I also added the original not-so-supernatural and crazy Confucianism to the game, otherwise, it may feel too weird. Anyway, in the game, it is what you want to believe matters.
As Confucius once said, "朝闻道，夕死可矣" means, "If you can learn the path to the truth in the morning, there shall be no regrets to die in the evening." (Or, it may also mean "If I learned how to get to my enemies in the morning, they would be dead in the evening!" by our friendly neighborhood bloody Kong worshipers. :P), all that matters is you have learned your path. (Or, slaughtered your enemies.)
This is just one of the possible blood gods the bandit berserkers worship. There will be even more. Some may be even more strange. After all, maybe, civilization is merely a facet to hide our cruelty. Yet, it's our humanity that makes us deny such primal bloodthirsty and become more than merely animals. Yet, everything can be interpreted in different ways.

Meanwhile, we also get more facilities in the Katan's Den of Pleasure. You can now access a part of the "Fall-from-Grace" brothel (no NSFW content so far.) You can also access to an Arena nearby. Both of them only have a little content right now. But, they will continue to get more.

Other updates include the optimation of combat UI, new prefixes that can adjust hatreds generated from damages, and allowing the drinks from Memory Distillers to carry over life experience.

That's for this week. More content will flow in just like the blood in the Arena. Blood for the Blood God!

The full update log of this week:
20240413
English
############Content###############
[Dr. Kyofu]Each positive relationship point with her now gives a small discount when you purchase items from her. (Except for the Memory Distiller.)
[Furniture]New furniture: Toilet (Various furniture vendors in Liu sell this furniture.)
[Loot]Russian Orc Soilders may now drop toilets.
############Debug################
Fixed the incorrect localization text used when petting bunnies. The game will now correctly mention you recovered some MP by petting bunnies. (Thanks to 一大只人's feedback.)
Fixed a typo in the quest "Containment Breach." (Thanks to 一大只人's feedback.)


20240414
English
############Content###############
[Memory Distiller]Memory Distiller can now also carry over some of its victim's life skill experience.
[Memory Distiller]The drink it generates shall now be more valuable if the drink carries more experience.
[Furniture]You can now let anyone in your group poop in a toilet you deployed. (Cost MP. It also comes with some funny texts.) You may need to pick up and redeploy one to have this feature appear if it was deployed before this update.
[Toilets]All toilets in the world now allow you to poop.
[Burning Ashes and Masks]Added a women's restroom in the airport.


20240415
English
############Content###############
[Character Customization]Added 1 new playable male character variation.
[Faith]New Belief: Confucianism
[Skill]New Skill: Murderous Berserk
############Debug################
Fixed a bug that causes pets' attributions to not update after using a distilled memory to level up.


20240416
English
############Content###############
[Enemy]New Enemy: Bandit Berserker
[Bandit Berserker]They will attack you with other bandits. They are less talkative than other bandits. So, no negotiations before the battle.
[Katan]Bandit Berserkers now appear in the nearby desert.
[Wonderland Travel Agency]Random locations with "Bandit" enemies may now have Bandit Berserkers.
[Skill]Added new animation for the "Murderous Berserk."
[Skill]Added a new icon for the "Murderous Berserk."
############System################
[Battle]Optimized the Drawcall when selecting an enemy. If the target enemy does not change, the information window shall not redraw. Added a pointer to the last selected enemy.


20240417
English
############Content###############
[Loot]Added an item drop list for Bandit Berserkers.
[Faith]New Belief: Kong
[Item]New Religious Book: Lu'en Yu (It may drop by Bandit Berserkers.)
[Faith]Added a generic Kong faith for NPCs to use.
[Enemy]Bandit Berserkers near Katan now worship Kong.
[Skill]Reduced the base MP cost of Berserk Attack. (155 -> 125)
[Skill]Reduced the base Power of Berserk Attack. (400 -> 325)
############System################
Added functions to allow a character to gain devotion when killing during a battle.

20240418
English
############Content###############
[Special Attribution]Added a new special attribution that can modify "Hatred Per Damage."
[Special Attribution]Clamped the "Hatred Per Damage" modifier so that it can not go below -1. (If it goes below -1, it will effectively make each damage reduce hatred.)
[Prefix]New Generic Prefix: Abominable (It increases the Hatred Per Damage.)
[Prefix]New Generic Prefix: Adorable (It decreases the Hatred Per Damage.)
[Den of Pleasure]A part of the "Fall-from-Grace Brothel" is now accessible with an NPC who can introduce you to this place.
[Den of Pleasure]Lao Wang 'the Gentleman' now sells condoms.
############Debug################
Fixed a bug that may cause float numbers in special attributions not get rounded up correctly.

20240419
English
############Content###############
[Den of Pleasure]The Arena is now accessible.
[Den of Pleasure]Added a short story when you enter the Arena for the first time.
[Den of Pleasure]Added an Arena host NPC.
[Den of Pleasure]Added randomly generated Arena Audiences.
[Faith]Added an array that contains all the blood god faiths for NPCs. (Currently, there is only one entry.)
[Enemy]Bandit Berserkers may now have any faith randomly picked from the blood god faith list.
############System################
The "swap events by chance" function can now take an array of event IDs as potential swap targets.