Empire of Sin Patch Notes - Update 1.04 Adds Autoresolve, Fixes Safehouse Healing Exploit

Empire of Sin’s Update 1.04 is now live, its patch notes revealing the arrival of more autoresolve features alongside changes to healing items, abilities, and more. The first stage of autoresolve was actually introduced in Update 1.03, today’s additions further fleshing out the system.

Update 1.04 also adds hotkey numbers to Empire of Sin’s combat HUD, while improving Racket Guards’ Marksmanship. Crew members who you decide to fire or end up quitting will now hold a grudge and rehiring them instantly is no longer possible.

Below, you’ll find all the changes and additions introduced to Empire of Sin in Update 1.04, as detailed in the full patch notes:

The Highlights

• Autoresolve - The goal of combat auto-resolve for Empire of Sin is to create a reliable and useful source of information for the player that appears before every fight. When the Player initiates a fight or a Faction AI initiates a fight with the player, the combat auto-resolve screen will appear.
• This screen presents players with information about the fight, the participants in the fight, their professions, and equipment, as well as a number of options that the player can select.
• Players can select the "Fight" option to manually enter combat and manually fight the fight or select the "Auto-Resolve" option to attempt and auto-resolve the fight based on the projected odds at the top of the screen.
• A word of warning, your Bosses and Gangsters can and will take damage when using the auto-resolve option. If your Boss dies, it's game over.
• The Safehouse healing exploit has now been removed. The passive healing in the Safehouse is now 2x normal passive healing rather than instant heal.

Combat

• Fixed Ally Threat being wrongfully applied when you are not at war
• Fixed issues with the lifeline ability; one which could cause it to be applied incorrectly to combat actors and one where the bonus could become stuck on a character
• Fixed a formatting issue in a combat error message
• Fixed a bug where characters could be warped out of the combat bounds at the beginning of combat if that character had been knocked down or killed by an overwatch shot in a previous combat
• Doubled the chance of getting healing items in combat and reduced their cost to buy in the shop by 30%
• Characters not moving back into cover after an Overwatch miss shot from a step out position should be fixed now
• Peeking, switching sides from a 90 degree angle and multiple cover values should now be fixed
• Smaller miscellaneous changes and fixes related to cover and peeking have been implemented
• Crew members who have been fired or who have quit will now hold a grudge, and can not be instantly rehired
• Factions you are invited to war against are now revealed
• Double Tap now uses the correct icon on ground tiles when selected
• All higher tier doctors now start with the Heal ability
• Fixed an issue where dead bodies and civilians would block the mouse when trying to move to squares in combat
• Remedy will no longer be absent on the talent tree, if the player had saved the game when Remedy was a consumable item instead of a persistent talent and their current talent tier is greater than 3
• Fixed First Aid Kit, no longer applies the Bandaged status effect when used outside of combat.
• Standardized how Heal abilities work
• Now only showing "Difficulty X/5" on thug owned buildings
• Guard Inventory Improvements: Added healing items to all major faction guards, removed short barrelled shotguns from shotgun guards, replaced short barrelled shotguns with primary shotguns
• Racket Guard Improvements: Increased the Marksmanship attribute for all tiers of racket guards by +10
• Reworked how Bullet Shield behaves
• Removed always bleeding out and removed shared damage
• Gave law enforcement the subdue action at the start of combat
• Unleash Fury and Exhaustion improvements have been made
• Changed the effect of the exhaustion debuff and now show an animation at the beginning of Frankie's turn if he's exhausted
• Improved the UI for stackable status effects
• Reduced Unleash Fury's attack count from 4 to 3 to match its animation
• Cover animations and transitions are now faster
• Added new double fire animations and transitions
• Adjusted starting cash based on difficulty
• Fixed selection bug after combat
• Hired Gun - Iteration - Sweep - Removed sweep as talent, making it an SMG and machine gun ability, replacing the talent with Can Opener
• Added the Can Opener ability, as mentioned above.
• Unleash Fury Changed: Updated action panel description to mention exhaustion. Slightly reduced the base damage and critical hit chance, but increased critical hit damage modifier
• Initiative changes for NPCs and player characters. Improves the layering of characters during combat
• Stopped z-fighting on target reticles
• Changed the behaviour of Unleash Fury so that it refunds AP instead of costing none
• Stopped the AI from throwing too many knives during fan of knives. Apologies to all knife fans.
• Reworked Hair Trigger
• Added basic combat personalities to bosses and gangsters
• Handgun Changes: Added Double Fire Handgun Ability
• Fixed issue with melee damage modifiers not working as a percentage
• Hitting a target from the back with a Knock Out now puts the target in the Knocked Out state
• Applying the Knock Out state on a character not in cover no longer generates a console error and a 1 second freeze on the target
• Unleash Fury now plays hit and miss audio correctly
• Added a fade after auto resolve
• Further weapon balancing
• Fixed an issue with animators gettings stuck after auto resolving certain fights
• Fixed a softlock that could occur after autoresolving several combats in quick succession
• Fix for thugs not attacking after you enter and exit ambush mode before opening a loot crate.
• Improved threatProcessor in cases where threat is rapidly gained
• Changed color of dice and win percent in combat autoresolve screen to reflect chance

UI

• Added hotkey numbers to the combat HUD
• Changed the badass bonus for better telegraphing to the player
• Gang leader equipped description added
• Made cash values in diplomacy dialogs cleaner
• Removed held items from AI inventories in the trade screen
• Adjusted visuals of learned/unlearned talents so that they look less similar
• Added difficulty warning on the "Are you sure?" combat attack popups
• Added [GREET] to boss intro pop ups
• After the black market tutorial involving the radial menu has been completed, the allowed selectable buttons that were previously disabled from the tutorial's white list now get enabled when the player comes back
• Fixed the highlighting on "review" button on Crew screen
• Added missing titles to events
• Passive scroll now resets properly in the Racket info screen
• Added a warning window to sell building dialogue if selling the building may fail or relocate a mission
• The default position of the cursor when opening the crew screen with a controller is now the bottom-right element instead of top-left element.
• Now showing "0" instead of "-" for characters who are forced hirable
• Added titles to hire confirmation windows
• Added tooltips to diplomacy tabs
• Adjusted tooltip for notifications to use accurate timing
• Added modifier name for life lesson
• Added notification for when s temporary alliance times out
• Ensured that visualization of customers and earnings are up to date
• Added extra tab to journal to separate boss/side missions from bridging/empire missions
• Now showing info about racket takeover and notoriety gain/loss in post combat screen
• Now allowing scrolling on "events" section of post-combat screen
• Added "Discuss" option to Diplomacy tab
• Added new icons for Can Opener
• Updated status effect tooltips to calculate effects based on stacks
• Stopped clock icon in resource summary panel from highlighting and playing mouse enter and click sounds
• The game now selects the resume button by default when trying to use the game menu on controller with no button selected
• Made the mission tutorial open on the correct tab in the tutorial
• Made the resource summary buttons non-interactive when ui is blocked
• Tooltip polish

Missions

• Fixed an issue with marking buildings as mission critical when they are acquired from placements
• Delayed mission fails that happen mid combat now wait until combat has finished which should prevent softlocks from characters being deleted mid combat
• Fixed Lost and Found where a softlock could happen after interaction with thugs. The game would get stuck on a loading screen trying to enter racket
• That issue where some missions would give rewards even when they failed. It’s gone, boss. It could cause an error with other missions completing if one of the rewards was an item
• The Broken Menagerie mission that wouldn’t continue if the fight happens before thug fight? Yeah that got whacked.
• Mission text fixes
• Mission critical NPCs now fall unconscious if they are involved in other combats, rather than dying and getting up when you need to talk to them. If we had zombies, they wouldn’t snitch
• Mission fixes - Monks quest not completing if you kill Wally without talking to him, converting a derelict to brewery for two brew completes brewery objective, adding the and a to dialogue where derelict building appears, not finding Stanley and Bert in In The Trenches and Red Handed if the building is sold, moving NPCs away from buildings in an attempt to make them easier to select by controllers
• Added warning to mole event if making that gangster a mole will fail their personal mission
• Adjusted Fail Mission text to mention specific gangsters, fixing small typos, changed mission description text in Cop Bar mission
• Fixed issue where blowing up 3rd polling station is sometimes unavailable in DMJ’s mission, It Came From The Lake event not showing proper racket name, checking that gangsters aren't injured or sent away before making them a mole
• Fixed softlock after upgrading brewery in Whatcha Gonna Do. Fix for npcs stuck in cowering animation when combat ends too early, Fix for instant fail on Izzy’s Been Busy
• Fixed Reyna House On Fire failing when someone dies
• Fixed gangster personal missions activating with moles
• Fixed cash being deducted twice from Hit Em Where It Hurts
• Fixed the softlock happening after clicking on NPC quickly after conversation in Mock mission

General

• Passive healing now removed for difficulties above Lieutenant
• The game now randomly unlocks 1 gangster from each tier every month and makes them hirable on start
• Added building textures
• Fixed minor inconsistencies between VO and text in sitdowns
• Fixed issue with Synergies not disbanding when buildings are taken over by other factions
• Fixed missing gun cabinet mesh in Character Select Screen
• The traffic that was stopped in place after the Tutorial is now moving again
• Fixed an issue with loot screens popping up when other factions find them, removing cash from loot crate drops for 1.03
• The Steam overlay no longer causes an error on the console
• Found the missing letters on the map for the Municipal Pier
• The player won't be able to talk to the bartender during the tutorial anymore
• If Hugh and/or Maria are spawned in the world and the player skips the tutorial: they now storm off in a huff if they weren't hired by the player
• If tutorial meat packers spawn and the player skips the tutorial without going into combat with them: we automatically just kill them - they deserve it, the dirty rats
• Anyone hired in the Tutorial now continues to get the employment loyalty bonus
• Added a new line of sight indicator icon to show bleeding out characters
• Fixed a potential blocker on the alcohol tutorial when re-enabling the tutorial during the game
• Allowed alcohol storage limits for diplomatic actions to be spread across all available storage
• Updated localisation
• Additional checks by minor faction AI to ensure target faction has requested alcohol before making trade request have been added
• Added mouse wheel scrolling to the Alcohol and Finance screens
• Fixed an issue with buildings changing racket type too soon when given as a reward causing errors with thugs trying to find space
• Fixed issues with the camera when focussing on a character
• Made sure the alcohol tutorial only triggers if the player is on the correct tab.
• Fixed non-interactive Skip Tutorial prompt
• Added miss animations when a player is peeking out
• Removed sound effect when AI picks up loot crate
• Halved the take floor on Earl Weiss
• Explosion vfx updates
• Fixed an issue where guards and squad members could have their movement indicators activated
• Changed Safehouse discovery chances
• Sit-downs can no longer happen at invalid buildings
• Fixed an issue where two location loads could be called at the same time, leading to the camera ending up in the wrong location
• Slider in trading menu has louder SFX
• Button select audio improved
• Re-recorded Antonio's voice
• Fixed an error when hovering over interactable safehouse objects (blackboard, world map desk etc.) with virtual cursor in combat
• Added "begin sitdown" cursor
• Fixed Elvira’s evil laugh
• Audio added for "You've made a terrible mistake" after declaring war
• Stephanie is now as loud as the other bosses
• We now trigger an investigation event before launching a FactionMet conversation
• Limited alcohol amount setting to prevent going negative
• Skip tutorial option now inaccessible if coming from a conversation or sitdown
• Fixed text in It Came from the Lake event
• Moved all floating lamp posts down to the ground
• Implemented the L Train
• Standing Orders are removed when one of the factions involved is eliminated
• Factions will wait at least 2 minutes in world time before breaking pacts they've formed
• Removed unnecessary loading screens for player on accepting a sitdown request
• Requesting a sit-down now always focuses on the sitdown building on the world map
• Fixed incorrect default camera position when entering interiors
• Fixed several issues around combat and location locks and transitions
• Fixed slight overshoot on world map camera pans
• Long distance pans on the World Map will now take up to 2 seconds to complete (to avoid crazy fast panning
• Adjusted decision to ignore rating of war target when determining whether or not to uphold pact
• Fixed issue where attacking a building with a gangster while your boss is elsewhere would load the boss's location first
• Ensured that the combat grid calculation uses the proper combat bounds
• Make boss abilities use a kill cooldown
• Fixed Earl Weiss missing ragdoll
• Reduced the costs to buy and upgrade rackets by 50%
• Updated safehouses and Large Casino environments
• Fixed Safehouse chair colliders and Safehouse desk not being interactive
• Made tutorial responses consistent, small fixes to text in tutorial
• Fixed issue that prevented you from selecting moles
• Now displaying the ability cooldown in ability tooltips and on the action information panel description
• Fixed camera position in all interiors
• Fixed occasional issue on Mac where the game hardlocks on boss selection screen
• Updated Frankie Donovan’s Base stats
• Lowered bartering value of items/weapons. Better visualization for disguised alcohol. Instant discovery of disguised alcohol bought-back
• Removed Kill requirement from boss abilities
• Added a delay to the bandage scenario when bandage will revive a character to allow time for the animation to play
• Ensured that loans are removed after economy lock is over
• Changed the take over option in the investigate introduction to start exterior combat, requiring the player to declare war before attacking
• Player is no longer incorrectly notified that police refused to turn a blind eye for another faction
• Added new guard combat VO lines
• 2 new combat songs, Safehouse songs and Racket songs added
• Double VO on boss execution fixed
• Characters now shut the hell up when the game is paused
• Meat Hook / Lion Tamer fixed: character who is the target says "Shit" instead of the attacker
• Made sure investigating police spawn at different locations
• We no longer show a message when a character is healed of their injury or is released from jail if they are no longer in your faction
• Tweaked gear score item rarity contributions
• Stopped the extended combat tutorial from triggering outside of full combat
• Made sure the equipment tutorials don't fire when the game menu is open
• Cancelled the equip ammo tutorial if the player doesn't have a primary weapon equipped when it starts
• Changed Black Market health item quantities
• Changed Norah Quinn's notoriety gate to 0
• Increased loot tables for health items by 10%
• Fixed placeholder button prompts showing up when loading a saved controller tutorial step
• Fixed callout lines on the controls screen
• Fixed restore defaults button showing up on controls screen
• Fixed an issue with a specific thug model which caused its ragdoll to begin in a T-pose
• Fixed issue where game menu could not be navigated after pressing "start" on combat autoresolve UI
• Fixed an issue where pain killers could cause overwatch or suppressing fire to softlock during their trigger
• Changed starting cash amounts based on difficulty

Empire of Sin is out now on PC, Xbox One, PS4, and Nintendo Switch. For our thoughts on the game, give our review a read.

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