Inkbound News

[h2]Letter from the Team[/h2]

We're working hard to get improvements out to you all as fast as we can, this tweaks balance in a variety of areas and fixes a number of reported bugs.

We think we've improved a lot of the outlier combats at this point but please, as always, send in feedback if you think something doesn't feel right.

[h2]Release Timing[/h2]

This patch will be released at approximately 10 am PT (UTC-7) on September 1st, 2023.

This link will convert that to your local time.

[h2]Full Patch Notes[/h2]

[h3]General & Quests[/h3]

1. Slightly increase base stats of enemies in daily challenge to bring up the challenge level a bit overall.
   
2. Fixed Helmet Crab tooltip showing incorrect shielding.
   
3. Reduced base damage of Creeping Blight from 3 >>> 2.
   
4. Reduced base damage of Blight Puddles from 4 >>> 2.
   
5. Inflict Burn run quest decreased from 750 >>> 650. Quick Mode decreased from 600 >>> 500.
   
6. Apply Spiked run quest increased from 100 >>> 130. Quick Mode increased from 80 >>> 100.
   

[h3]Star Captain[/h3]

1. Fixed Chillazer ascension Stimulate scaling with Magic Power instead of Physical Power.
   
2. Fixed Mission Leader ascension Shock Trooper missing tooltip for Shocked.
   

[h3]Clairvoyant[/h3]

1. Updated Spirit Bomb Uncommon augment Quickened Spirit Bomb to only be chosen once maximum since Spirit Bomb cooldown can't be reduced any further.
   

[h3]Magma Miner[/h3]

1. Fixed Uncommon Magma Miner vestige Worm Trophy granting Heat stacks every other turn.
   

[h3]Enemies[/h3]

1. Increased the damage of Argolath's Tentacle's "Slap" attack.
   
2. Reduced Inkzooka AOE attack scaling from 75% base damage >>> 50% base damage.
   
3. Slightly reduced Mimic Magma Miner and Mimic Mosscloak AOE size.
   
4. Updated Tuhning Guardians to move every turn and do less damage with their blast attack.
   
5. Increased Shadow of Ruhnstone’s health from 14000 >>> 15000.
   
6. Increased Ruhnstone Guardian’s health from 2500 >>> 3000. They now do slightly more damage.
   
7. Increased Book 1 Nimbit’s health from 100 >>> 120.
   
8. Increased Book 2 Nimbit’s health from 300 >>> 360.
   
9. Increased Book 1 Janus’ health from 2200 >>> 2600.
   
10. Tuned down a few combats with slightly too many enemies.
    
11. Reduced Inkblaster and Inkzooka base attack from 6 >>> 5.
    
12. Tuned down the number of Support Spindlecasters that show up at once in Edges combats.
    
13. Added updated tooltip for Support Spindlecasters that shows their heal amount.
    
14. Updated Rhinferno lava puddle to last only 1 turn instead of 3 turns.
    
15. Fixed Rhinferno not moving out of the shrinking Ink.
    

[h3]Visuals[/h3]

1. Added a new flash effect on damage procs.
   
2. Improved eye of the storm FX and Gaze FX.
   
3. Improved treasure pot FX.
   

[h3]Engine[/h3]

1. Changed MSAA default to 2X to potentially improve performance for players on older PCs who may never check the settings. All existing options are still available. Feel free to change the MSAA option back to 8x if you wish in the settings menu.
   
2. Fixed a voting bug caused by improper handling of "voting stopped" events that could lead to a softlock when voting to move forward.
   
3. Fixed a few bugs with multiplayer save resume that could result in it not working under certain circumstances. We still have at least one more bug to fix in this area related to a player abandoning the run from the main menu and then others attempting to continue that run. We're working on it.
   

I’m Albert A from the design crew. Today let’s talk about the Mimic!

The Mimic is a Guardian you can fight in the Derelict Starship. As Brendan was writing the story for Season 2, he came up with the idea of the Mimic, a formless alien creature made of liquid opal with the capability to morph their bodies into other forms. There were an abundance of inspirations we drew from, the T-100 from Terminator 2, Morph from Treasure Planet, Ben 10, and the art team went out to concept a rendition of a ‘shapeshifter’ creature.



The question was what would it do? Initially, we wanted the Mimic to be able to change shape into all of the current classes in the game. But as we drew it out, it became increasingly clear that it would have been too large of an undertaking. Each new form for the Mimic is akin to making an entirely new enemy – it would need its own concept, model, rig, and set of animations and abilities. So, instead we set out to limit it to 3 forms, Magma Miner, Mosscloak, and Weaver, the three starting classes in the game.

Designing what each form would do came down to 3 things:

• It needs to be reminiscent of the class it was playing, with identifiable moves as Bindings.
  
• It needs to have its own ‘spin’ on each of the Bindings to work as proper threat.
  
• It needs to shapeshift at some point during the combat. Otherwise, it wouldn’t feel like a ‘shapeshifter’.
  

So as the art team chugged along to get the Mimic in the game, I prototyped a placeholder asset with abilities. Having designed the starting 3 classes, it was nice to be able to sort of ‘recreate’ them in a different context. You couldn’t just plug in a player Binding to an enemy ability, each ‘Mimic Form’ would have to be its own iteration of each of the classes.

Magma Miner was the easiest to translate into an enemy, Bonk and Smash translate pretty well as direct attacks, and Leaping Strike just worked as a larger AOE. The main difference is, instead of gaining Heat only from attacking, the Mimic’s Magma Miner also gains Heat from being attacked, as a way to give the player agency during the fight.

Screenshot depicting the Mimic in Magma Miner form attacking player

Mosscloak’s initial design was a bit different. The initial design revolved a bit more around Shuriken. Rather than doing a Flurry AOE attack, Mosscloak’s direct attack would hit 1 time for each stack of Shuriken. So if it had 3 Shuriken, it would multiattack three times. The reason we ultimately didn’t stick with the idea is because it didn’t jive too well with Evasive, there wasn’t a way we could make that interaction clear, and we had plans for the future to grey out direct attack arrows that were getting dodged, so it wasn’t clear how it would work with that system either. A big benefit with how it’s currently implemented is that it’s less direct-attack heavy, and probably resembles Mosscloak more than the initial design.

Screenshot depicting the Mimic in Weaver form attacking player

We were inching closer to releasing the season, and we had a working prototype, but the art for the Mimic was still coming down the pipeline. Safe to say, we were getting pretty worried if we could get the Mimic to ‘work’ in time. Animation-wise, we hadn’t done anything like this before. Whether or not it would work out of the box was an open question…

The answer to that question was no, it would not work out of the box. In fact it was very broken, so broken that the enemy wouldn’t play any of its animations. Instead of walking it would slide across the battlefield like the silver surfer. So me and a bunch of other devs scrambled to try to find a fix. And we tried a lot of stuff, some of them would get one thing to work, but then cause the animation to break or start T-posing.

But thankfully after several discussions, we found a way to get it to work. The ultimate fix had to do with combining rigs together into one, and a bunch of other small things. Thanks to Griffin and Merlyn for getting the Mimic to work in the nick of time! Retrospectively there are a few things we could’ve done to smoothen the process a bit more, like shifting the Mimic further down the pipeline earlier, knowing that we were likely to run into problems out of the box.

In general, whenever you’re trying something new, you should always account for running into new problems. And, you need to weigh that with whether it’s worth the effort in trying to make that idea come to life. Sometimes, you might decide it isn’t worth the headache. But other times, if you have people who are excited about an idea, you go, “Why not?”.

I hope you guys enjoyed this deep dive in the process of making the Mimic, game development isn’t always a smooth ride, but it sure can be an interesting one.

[h2]Letter from the Team[/h2]

Our latest update aims to improve balance with a mix of buffs and nerfs to a variety of areas. In addition we've fixed a number of reported bugs. Thanks for all the feedback, keep it coming!

[h2]Release Timing[/h2]

This patch will be released at approximately 10 am PT (UTC-7) on August 30th, 2023.

This link will convert that to your local time.

[h2]Full Patch Notes[/h2]

[h3]General & Quests[/h3]

1. Tuned down the amount of enemy damage scaling for 2 player parties, making 2-player co-op runs slightly easier.
   
2. Players can now ctrl-click to force moving to/consuming a pickup when out of range. This is usable for battle pickups - Orbs, Cultivate flowers, and Cynder Mushrooms.
   
3. Fixed bug where some players could not see the quests to unlock new Aspects. Those quests should now show up for affected players.
   
4. Cleaned up a few abilities which may have been showing duplicate or incorrect tags.
   
5. Fixed Spiked damage tooltip not scaling with physical or ability power, although Spiked itself did the correct damage.
   
6. Fixed bug where Critical Lightning augment wasn't completing quest.
   
7. Fixed bug where ascending Smoke Bomb to Cluster Bomb also completed the Smouldering Incendiary quest.
   
8. Separated all of the status effect Run Quests so that there are no longer any hybrid versions. There is now a different quest for inflicting Burn, inflicting Poison, inflicting Frostbite, and gaining Spiked. Bleed and Dodge no longer appear in Run Quests.
   
9. Essence of Quillion status effects no longer have extraneous words.
   
10. Increased Movement related quest from 35>>>90.
    
11. Fixed some unclear objectives + repeat Gardener conversations in the Anchoring the DARVe quest.
    

[h3]Vestiges[/h3]

1. Updated Rare vestige Heavenly Eclipse: "On dealing Magic damage, gain 1 stack of Dawn. On dealing Physical damage, gain 1 stack of Dusk." >>> "On using a Magic Binding, gain 1 stack of Dawn. On using a Physical Binding, gain 1 stack of Dusk." Dusk grants 1 Magic Power per stack >>> 2 Magic Power per stack. Dawn grants 1 Physical Power per stack >>> 2 Physical Power per Stack.
   
2. Updated Uncommon vestige Scattered Samples. Uncommon >> Common.
   
3. Updated Rare vestige Stonemind. Rare >>> Uncommon.
   

[h3]Trinkets[/h3]

1. Everfrost of Arcutria trinket: Frostbite damage amount reduced from 2 >>> 1.
   
2. Blaze of Brigid trinket: Burn damage amount increased from 1 >>> 2.
   

[h3]Star Captain[/h3]

Currently the Star Captain is performing higher than all other Aspects so we’re going to reduce its overall damage slightly, and take some power away from Cryoclasm’s AoE. The defensive power gained from both shields and dazed in the Cryoclasm augments proves to be too useful at mitigating damage, so those are modified as well.

1. Sentinel Drone damage reduced from 50 >>> 40.
   
2. Reduced the AoE size of Cryoclasm.
   
3. Reduced the Frosbite stacks from secondary Cryoclasm from 2 >>> 1.
   
4. Shielding Cryoclasm augment: Shield on secondary hit changed from from uncommon >>> rare.
   
5. Dazing Cryoclasm augment: Dazes all targets hit >>> Dazes primary target only. Changed from rare >>> uncommon.
   
6. Fixed the weapon cosmetic rewards granted from Star Captain aspect quests.
   
7. Granted Star Captain cosmetics to players who already completed Star Captain aspect quests before cosmetic was swapped out.
   

[h3]Weaver[/h3]

1. Fixed Stitch Pull range not increasing with Widened Stitch augment.
   

[h3]Draftable Bindings[/h3]

1. Fixed Quicken Augments Magic Quicken, Physical Quicken, and Enhanced Quicken not triggering on Quicken ascensions.
   
2. Fixed Blink Uncommon augment Shielding Blink showing up as Common.
   

[h3]Enemies[/h3]

1. Removed countdown effect from Support Spindlecasters that increased attack of enemies on using a Binding.
   
2. Increased Book 1 Support Spindlecasters HP from 150 >>> 200. Increased Book 2 Support Spindlecasters HP from 450 >>> 600.
   
3. Tuned down several early combats that were killing players too fast.
   
4. Fixed Mimicked Threads not being removed from the player on defeating a Mimic that shows up in villains.
   
5. Reduced Book 1 Lusk’s base damage slightly.
   
6. Reduced Lusk’s projectile area of effect damage.
   
7. Increased health of Book 2 Lil’ Lusks from 200 >>> 260.
   
8. Nim now only gets attack bonuses from Nimbits dying.
   
9. Reduced Book 1 Nim’s base damage slightly.
   
10. Increased health of Book 2 Nimbits from 250 >>> 300.
    
11. Book 2 Captor now creates Chompys instead of Inkstains.
    
12. Argolath now gives 2 stacks of the damage increasing buff to the tentacles.
    
13. Argolath no longer gives the damage increasing buff to Mimics.
    
14. Ghostquill now will stand slightly closer to players by default.
    
15. Rhinkling will now stand slightly closer to players by default.
    
16. Reduced Thantaloupe and Razorshade collision size.
    

[h3]UI[/h3]

1. Slightly tweaked the display of Movement rings so that the player's new movement area is more visible.
   
2. Fixed issue where fill bar could show wrong experience value at the end of a run.
   
3. The HP bar no longer shows over-healing values.
   

[h3]Visuals[/h3]

1. Added a new batch of environmental VFX for the Derelict Starship.
   

[h3]Audio[/h3]

1. Fixed sea of ink humming, Argolath scream, and Barbed Banshee volume.
   

Check out the latest items on sale in Inkbound's Cosmetic Shop!

[h3]Grub-Tooth Hammer[/h3]
Was 700 now 500 Shinies

[h3]Eastern Kingdom Set[/h3]
Was 1250, now 1000 Shinies

[h3]Troll [/h3]
Was 300, now 200 Shinies

[h3]Drink animation[/h3]
Was 150, now 50 Shinies

[h3]Glitter Trail Effect[/h3]
Was 700, now 350 Shinies

[h3]Yeet it animation[/h3]
Was 300, now 150 Shinies

Share a screenshot of you and your new item here! And, as always, thank you so much for your support.

See you in the Atheneum!
Cami
Community Manager at Shiny Shoe

Hey, Inklings!

I hope you’re enjoying The Starship of Terrors! It’s only been a few days since the patch went live but I’m having a blast seeing everyone in the Atheneum and am so impressed by all your Daily Challenge scores!

To celebrate the update going live, Inkbound is 20% OFF until September 4th! We also have our first cosmetic store sale for this update! For this week, the following items are on sale:

[h3]Clairvoyant Plague Prophet Set[/h3]
Was 1,250 now 1,000 Shinies

[h3]Toxic Puddle Trail[/h3]
Was 700 now 500 Shinies

[h3]Fishface helmet[/h3]
Was 450 now 300 Shinies

[h3]Make it rain animation[/h3]
Was 450 now 300 Shinies

[h3]Boop emote[/h3]
Was 300 now 50 Shinies

[h3]Golden Nib Guards [/h3]
Was 450 now 200 Shinies

Now, I know there have been a lot of changes to the game in this update. If you’re interested in learning more, the team have written some fantastic blog posts that go into more detail on such features as…

Offline Mode: That’s right, rain or shine, you can now play Inkbound! Read more about offline mode in this blog post by our CEO, Mark Cooke!
Movement: You can now see how much movement points and what you will have left after using a binding simultaneously. For more details on the design and implementation of this change, check out Andrew’s blog post, ‘Movement 2.0’ here!
Newest Bindings: For players who want even more, you can read all about the newest bindings.
New Player Class: Finally, don’t forget about the Star Captain, whose designer wrote an in-depth post about the ins and outs of the newest player aspect here!

Want to share your Daily Challenge score? Have goofy decals you’ve paired with the Star Captain’s armor set? Share them on our Discord! This is also a great place to ask the team any questions you might have.

And, as always, I cannot express how much you, our amazing Inkbound players, mean to me! You make this the best game to work on and I can’t wait to see your reactions to The Starship of Terrors!

See you in the Atheneum!
Cami
Community Manager at Shiny Shoe