Publisher Hooded Horse and developer Slavic Magic have shared more details about Manor Lords’ next update, confirming that while a pathfinding rework is on the way, the previously announced changes to trade will take a bit longer to go live.
Hooded Horse CEO Tim Bender took to Steam to shed more light on Manor Lords’ next patch, apologizing for not providing a monthly update during April.
Manor Lords Eyes Pathfinding Rework in Its Next Update
This delay in communications was caused by issues continuously popping up during the quality assurance process.
“I made the bad judgement call of thinking, oh it’s a few days away, I’ll just wait for the update, a few times over, as we kept finding stuff to fix,” Bender explained before committing to monthly posts going forward.
Manor Lords’ next update will rework pathfinding “due to mounting technical and gameplay concerns,” the post explains.
“On the AI side, inefficiencies in how distances were being calculated started to impact performance while collision and navigation issues were undermining the reliability of core systems like worker behavior and unit movement.”
Developer Slavic Magic opted “to step back and address the root of the problem,” which involved “reworking how units evaluate space, navigate around obstacles, and recover when something goes wrong.”
In addition, other systems “had quietly degraded over time,” requiring their own share of work.
“While this was a detour from the main plan of development, it affects every facet of the game going forward and we feel the result has been worth it,” the post continues, promising “a considerable amount of fixes for cases where characters or animals became stuck, blocked entrances or failed to move, especially in and around castles or tight spaces.”
This has, however, led to Manor Lords’ planned trade rework being delayed. Although it was positively received when plans for it were first mentioned in January, a part of the community did question the need for these changes.
The developer thought that “if trade was going to change, it probably made sense to do that before building perks on top of it,” but has now opted to take a different route.
Instead of Manor Lords’ trade rework, the team will “focus on ‘Rural Traditions’ as the next set of perks,” which “[enhance] your local resources via upgrades to buildings or improved techniques which allow you to further specialize in a deeper way early on.”
Manor Lords’ next update and its pathfinding rework will arrive “likely very soon,” provided no further pressing issues pop up during testing.
Late last month, the medieval city builder celebrated its two-year anniversary since entering Steam Early Access.
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