ORX News

Greetings, Kings and Queens! This patch is the second step in our recent series of player-feedback updates. The first one focused mostly on bug fixing and optimization. This one is aimed much more directly at player experience.

A large part of that work came from thinking about earlier feedback on player agency. At one point, one of our updates took more agency away from players than we were comfortable with, and we wanted to understand exactly why. The conclusion we came to was fairly simple: agency starts to erode when players do not know what kinds of cards they are even likely to see, and when they have almost no way to influence that outcome.
Roguelikes need randomness. That unpredictability is part of the genre. But in ORX, it felt like that randomness needed a bit more structure. This patch pushes in that direction in two ways. First, it makes the elemental system more intuitive and readable in combat. Second, it gives players more control over how a run begins and develops through starting deck shaping, starting artifacts, and Advisors.



Advisors are our first answer to that agency problem. By adding an extra reward card from a specific category, they make future rewards easier to read and give players more control over the kind of build they are moving toward. We will keep watching how this feels in practice and continue tuning the system, but our current feeling is that letting players shape their starting conditions through their starting deck, starting artifact, and Advisor is a step in the right direction.


[h2]Patch Notes[/h2]
[h3]Combat[/h3]

• Elemental system rework.
  • Element applications no longer modify your entire damage output. Instead, they now add a separate bonus damage component.
    
  • If an enemy has resistance to an element, only the bonus elemental portion is resisted, rather than the whole hit.
    
  • Element counters have been reworked: each element cast now contributes to its respective counter.
    
  • Counter bonuses now follow a new progression curve, making higher counter values feel significantly stronger.
    
  • The standard elemental ORX pool now uses four core elements: Fire, Water, Wind, and Earth, plus Neutral.
    
  • Elemental ORX now ignore damage from their own element.
• Rare elements now appear much less frequently.
  
• Fixed a damage-rounding issue.

[h3]Audio[/h3]

• Added 3D sound to a range of combat audio.
  
• Added new sound layers for large ORX crowds and mass combat.
  
• Battles now feature more distinct footsteps, running, crowd voices, and impacts against buildings.
  
• Improved sound parameter handling for camera zoom and 3D camera position.
  
• Fixed cases where ORX crowd and battle audio could continue playing after abandoning, restarting, or ending a mission.
  
• Fixed missing audio for ORX Bomber explosions.

[h3]Gameplay[/h3]

• Re-introduced Advisors.
  • Advisors add an extra, fourth reward card from their category.
    
  • Each faction gets 4 unique Advisors.
    
  • Advisors are now selected as part of the run setup.
    
  • Reward cards added by Advisors now have their own visual badge.
• Added advisor icons to the status UI.
  
• Ongoing campaigns now correctly migrate to the new default advisor setup.
  
• Advisors no longer trigger at the start of a mission.

• Faction selection and campaign start changes.
  • Added starting artifact selection at the beginning of a run.
    
  • Your chosen starting artifact now affects your starting deck.
    
  • Advisor and starting artifact selection now happens directly in the faction screen.
    
  • Added new faction-specific starting artifacts.

[h3]UI / Readability[/h3]

• Added elemental icons to ORX status bars.
  
• Added elemental watermarks to info panels.
  
• Improved supported font handling for Korean localization.

[h3]Bug Fixes[/h3]

• Fixed a case where Runemage could be fully removed and break its alternation behavior.
  
• Fixed the Worm getting stuck on the flag.
  
• Fixed broken boss outlines.
  
• Fixed incorrect Zeppelin outlines on the campaign map.
  
• Fixed Giga ORX preview issues.
  
• Fixed a bug when finishing a shop.
  
• Fixed cases where campaigns failed to load.
  
• Fixed boss rewards sometimes being granted only in the following act.
  
• Fixed the bug report form being blocked by a locked log file.
  
• Fixed cases where stealth could break before the intended animation.
  
• Fixed artifact “new” markers not clearing after viewing newly added art.
  
• Fixed Universal Tavern / encyclopedia log spam.

[h3]Refactoring and optimization[/h3]

• Cleaned old assets out of the build.
  
• Removed legacy elemental-power functionality that was still referenced by the encyclopedia.
  
• Fixed a build pipeline issue.
  
• Improved stability for stationary bosses by allowing their physics position to be locked when needed.

[p]This update is primarily about stability and performance. We targeted the problems that most directly damage the feel of a run: frame-time spikes in large fights, slowdowns that build up over long sessions, and hitches (or freezes) during mission load/unload. The approach here was pretty basic: ship the quickest wins that are safe to integrate without destabilizing gameplay - cutting recurring costs in rendering, batching/atlasing, fog/visibility evaluation, animation overhead, and scene cleanup (costs that scale with everything on screen, from units to trees and biome textures). Alongside that work, we fixed a set of gameplay/UI/VFX issues that could stall enemies, break interactions, or confuse feedback, and we improved bug-report tooling so future fixes can be faster and more accurate. Shout out to everyone who took their time to message us their feedback![/p][p][/p][h3]Performance / Optimization[/h3]

• [p]Mission render optimization (general performance pass on mission rendering).[/p]
• [p]Scene unloading optimization (cleaner unload / less leftover state).[/p]
• [p]Reduced rendering costs for dynamic fog recalculation.[/p]
• [p]Field Observer optimized (visibility / detection system that continuously evaluates units and objects in the field).[/p]
• [p]Faster mission loading by optimizing collider recalculation for building highlights.[/p]
• [p]Biome atlases regrouped.[/p]
• [p]ORX sprites regrouped into atlases (more intelligently).[/p]
• [p]High-res (512) biome images packed into large atlases (with correct form of compression that does not kill the quality of textures).[/p]
• [p]Reduced sprite overhead: stopped creating clones of sprites already loaded from an atlas.[/p]
• [p]Runes moved to the custom animator.[/p]

[h3]Gameplay / Logic Fixes[/h3]

• [p]Final boss phase: fixed a case where the “day” wouldn’t start when the final boss entered its aggressive stage and stepped onto the field (boss could stand idle until killed).[/p]
• [p]Wizdomiac totems: fixed spawning/placement so totems don’t appear outside warriors’ attack reach.[/p]
• [p]Walls: fixed a case where a wall could get stuck into a farm after capturing a neighboring village.[/p]
• [p]Tile progression: fixed cases where a village could be cleared but the tile stayed blocked/closed despite no longer being obstructed.[/p]
• [p]ORX targeting: fixed ORX units stalling near a destroyed town center (main building) while other village town centers were still alive.[/p]
• [p]ORX movement: fixed an issue where ORX could run “backwards” (orientation/animation).[/p]
• [p]Snipers: fixed “strange” behavior (AI/targeting/movement pass).[/p]
• [p]Boreal crossbowmen: fixed an issue where they didn’t damage lairs.[/p]
• [p]Boreal contracts: fixed an exploit where contracts could be played on permanently dead ORX/warchiefs.[/p]
• [p]Worm interactions: Fixed a bug when casting a weapon on a camp whose warriors were killed by the worm would crash the mission. Fixed a restore-blocking issue tied to the worm (restore being blocked on the wrong target).[/p]
• [p]Fixed incorrect behavior when Revenge and Resurrect were combined.[/p]
• [p]Towers: removed “cold start” behavior (towers no longer start in a delayed/disabled state).[/p]

[h3]UI / UX / Tooling[/h3]

• [p]Added a Bug Report button that packages logs + saves and sends them.[/p]
• [p]HP bar: added a clear “vulnerable” indication when the target is vulnerable.[/p]
• [p]Buildings: added an indicator for buildings with an active ability while it’s running, including a multiplier/stack count for multiple timers; fixed ability UI showing grey/inactive while the ability still works.[/p]
• [p]Fixed UI rounding/formatting for very small multiplier numbers.[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue where description text color didn’t update.[/p]
• [p]Artifacts: added dynamic attribute tooltips; adjusted tooltip bottom padding for better readability.[/p]
• [p]Vault upgrade UI: fixed scrollbar behavior when selecting cards.[/p]
• [p]Fixed hover detection when dragging/hovering a card on the left side of a road/path.[/p]
• [p]Player Options: added windowed mode.[/p]
• [p]Medieval warriors UI: added a title text-sprite showing the warrior count.[/p]
• [p]Legendary reward icons updated/added (scope unclear).[/p]
• [p]Advisors: additional “hide/cover” behavior implemented (scope unclear).[/p]

[h3]Visual / VFX Fixes[/h3]

• [p]Fixed broken “void edge” visuals/tiling.[/p]
• [p]Decoration layering pass: removed “standing” decorations and moved decorations to the road level.[/p]
• [p]Poison VFX: updated trail + bullet visuals.[/p]
• [p]Targeting VFX: beam + target circle now stay on the target until the hit connects.[/p]

[p]RUNE GUARDIANS[/p]

• [p]Veterancy now grants unit-type-specific bonuses instead of a single generic curve:[/p]
  • [p]Militia: stronger STR-focused bonuses[/p]
  • [p]Spearmen: stronger VIT-focused bonuses[/p]
  • [p]Orbcaster: stronger DEX-focused bonuses[/p]
  • [p]Paladins: more balanced, averaged bonuses across stats[/p]
• [p]Paladin base stats reduced.[/p]

[p]CAMPAIGN & DIFFICULTY[/p]

• [p]Further reduced Zeppelin and Titan spawns from spawn points in early Acts (1-2).[/p]

[p]CAMPAIGN & DIFFICULTY[/p]

• [p]Mission scaling adjusted from Act 3 onward. Later-campaign waves will be slightly harder.[/p]
• [p]Reduced the aggressiveness of ORX Zeppelin spawns from forests and destroyed buildings.[/p]
• [p]Wind/Water/Fire/Earth ORX Villages reintroduced in Act 4 in low quantity. Elemental ORX have been rebalanced, each gaining their own passive abilities.[/p]
• [p]Wizdomiac boss: when forced to retreat between waves, it now destroys its own totems (should remove several stupid softlocks that happened occasionally due to random map generation).[/p]

[p]DUNE REAVERS[/p]

• [p]Full card cost rebalance; cooldowns added to a number of cards.[/p]
• [p]Updated many card descriptions that did not match real behavior.[/p]
• [p]Cards are now correctly distributed across 3 rarities.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a visual issue where Dictates were not carrying over when moving a unit.[/p]
• [p]Archers damage behavior changed to reduce lag (less attack speed, more damage + Multistrike).[/p]
• [p]Warriors should no longer spawn outside of map bounds.[/p]
• [p]Expanded/fixed behavior for multiple cards and effects, including: Dictates, Geology, Well, Road Lamp, Orator, Weapon Craftsman, Mystic Crypt, Fight Club.[/p][p]Dune Reavers warning: this is by no means the final iteration of Dune Reavers, but this update makes them playable in terms of balance on the current patch.[/p]

[p]BOREAL NOMADS WARNING[/p]

• [p]Added a prominent in-game warning that Boreal Nomads are currently not balanced and may be broken. The faction remains available to play, but expect issues.[/p]