The Slormancer News

Hello everyone!


[h2]New Endgame mode[/h2]
The Great Forge has been added into the game. Simply talk to Cory Ironbender to unlock the new mode then to Palstrang to get there.

The Great Forge is a wave-based mode in which you have to defend yourself from hundreds of enemies. It also adds a different type of challenge to The Slormancer, heavily based on greed.



Various loot you usually get from enemies are added to your War Chest which you can loot at any point between waves. Once you do, The Great Forge ends.

Every Wave, you get to choose between various Challenges that each offer a different type of Reward, ranging from the new Reapersmith Spirit Currency, to % Equipment Quality or % Goldus Quantity applied to loot in your War Chest. The key is to stack as many Rewards as you can, well... without dying.



Challenges: There is about 60 unique Challenges. They often come with multiple difficulty settings based on their Rarity (from Normal to Legendary) so the actual number of different Challenges is quite higher. About half the Challenges comes from Cataclysms.

Greater Rewards: On top of regular Rewards, we've added 32 Greater Rewards to the game. They are almost always tied to Epic or Legendary Challenges and often change the configuration of your War Chest, such as converting your Slorm into Goldus.




[h2]New Currency[/h2]
A new kind of Currency called Reapersmith Spirits has been added into the game. They can only be looted through Challenges inside The Great Forge and allow you to upgrade your Reaper Runes, your Slorm Reaper Affinity or to forge Slorm Reapers.

There is a Reapersmith Spirit for each Reapersmith, so a total of 7.
You get a 200% Reapersmith Spirit bonus from the Reapersmith of your current Slorm Reaper. On top of that, Reapersmith Spirits are guaranteed, whether you loot your War Chest or die in The Great Forge, so choosing the proper Slorm Reaper to get these currencies is a top priority.

[h2]New Mechanic: Slorm Reaper Affinity[/h2]
With Reapersmith Spirits, you can purchase Slorm Reaper Affinity to Cory Ironbender. And just like Spirits, there are 7 different Slorm Reaper Affinites to upgrade.
You can get up to 100 points in each Slorm Reaper Affinity. Each point grants:
+0.5% Reaper Damage
+0.5 Effect Multiplier
+1% Slorm Reaper Experience Gain
+0.5% Reduced Primordial Cap
These bonuses are applied to every Slorm Reaper wrought by the upgraded Affinity.
So if you choose to upgrade Fulgurorn's Affinity, then every Slorm Reaper wrought by Fulgurorn will benefit from these bonuses, on every class.



[h2]New Mechanic: Forging Slorm Reapers[/h2]
Reapersmith Spirits also allow you to forge Slorm Reapers for your other classes.
The prerequisite is to own the Slorm Reaper with at least one of your characters.
So if you own Sword of the Nimble Warrior, you will be able to craft Bow of the Nimble Warrior or Staff of the Nimble Warrior for your Huntress or your Mage.
This works on Primordial Slorm Reapers as well.



[h2]New Slorm Reaper: Fate-Crusher[/h2]
A new Slorm Reaper has been added into the game. It is sold by Cory Ironbender and cannot be looted.

[h2]New Boss: The Siege Leader[/h2]
A new Boss, exclusive to The Great Forge, has been added into the game.
It has multiple Challenges tied to it and can spawn at (almost) any time during an Expedition in The Great Forge. Spawning and defeating The Siege Leader gives you access to the new Reaper Runes, and later on, to Greater Rewards.



[h2]New Mechanic: Reaper Runes[/h2]
Reaper Runes have been added into the game. They are unlocked by defeating The Siege Leader inside The Great Forge.
There are 28 Reaper Runes:

• 7 Runes of Activation
  
• 14 Runes of Effect
  
• 7 Runes of Enhancement
  

Runes of Effects are based on Slorm Reaper Effects, so you will get to find Rune of the Nimble Warrior, or The Most Powerful Rune etc...
An Effect Rune is triggered when you fill the condition of the associated Rune of Activation. So the default setting to get Runes to work is to have at least 1 Rune of Activation linked to 1 Rune of Effect.
Runes of Enhancement adds a bonus to the configuration.




4 New Cataclysms have been added into the game.

1. Hermetic: grants resistance to Damage over Time (25% to 100%).
   
2. Double Down: grants Recast Chance (up to 100%).
   
3. Multiplication: grants Additional Projectiles (up to 2).
   
4. Proliferation: grants Increased Area Size (up to 100%).
   

The Base Damage of a great number of Slorm Reapers has been buffed while the Base Damage of The Most Powerful Reaper has been reduced. The complete list of changes can be found here.


We've been working on improving the overall feeling of some of The Mighty Knight's skills: Ascension, Crest Shield and Whirlwind have been reworked to feel more natural and less clunky.


There are various changes and other minor additions that can be found in the complete Patch Notes, right here!

As always, the first few days of an Update are a bit unstable. Despite our best effort, we might have missed a few bugs here and there. So if you find one, please report it here, on the Steam forums, or on our Discord.
We try to fix them as soon as possible.

Same goes for balance, we try our best to build something that is balanced and fair but we probably forgot about this build or that build, or forgot that this effect was completely broken with another.
The truth is 200 players playing 2 hours each are faster to discover these issues than the both us playtesting for a 100 hours. So we expect balance issues aswell.

We really hope that you have fun in The Great Forge!
If so, let us know! Leaving a Review on Steam is a great way to do so. :)

That's about it!

Hello everyone!

The Great Forge Update will be available on September 27, so by Tuesday!
The Update will go live around 10AM CEST (European Time) or 4AM EDT (Eastern Time).

Here is the complete list of changes and additions.


[h2]New Endgame mode[/h2]
The Great Forge has been added into the game. Simply talk to Cory Ironbender to unlock the new mode then to Palstrang to get there.

The Great Forge is a wave-based mode in which you have to defend yourself from hundreds of enemies. It also adds a different type of challenge to The Slormancer, heavily based on greed.

Various loot you usually get from enemies are added to your War Chest which you can loot at any point between waves. Once you do, The Great Forge ends.

Every Wave, you get to choose between various Challenges that each offer a different type of Reward, ranging from the new Reapersmith Spirit Currency, to % Equipment Quality or % Goldus Quantity applied to loot in your War Chest. The key is to stack as many Rewards as you can, well... without dying.

Challenges: There is about 60 unique Challenges. They often come with multiple difficulty settings based on their Rarity (from Normal to Legendary) so the actual number of different Challenges is quite higher. About half the Challenges comes from Cataclysms.

Greater Rewards: On top of regular Rewards, we've added 32 Greater Rewards to the game. They are almost always tied to Epic or Legendary Challenges and often change the configuration of your War Chest, such as converting your Slorm into Goldus.


[h2]New Currency[/h2]
A new kind of Currency called Reapersmith Spirits has been added into the game. They can only be looted through Challenges inside The Great Forge and allow you to upgrade your Reaper Runes, your Slorm Reaper Affinity or to forge Slorm Reapers.

There is a Reapersmith Spirit for each Reapersmith, so a total of 7.
You get a 200% Reapersmith Spirit bonus from the Reapersmith of your current Slorm Reaper. On top of that, Reapersmith Spirits are guaranteed, whether you loot your War Chest or die in The Great Forge, so choosing the proper Slorm Reaper to get these currencies is a top priority.

[h2]New Mechanic: Slorm Reaper Affinity[/h2]
With Reapersmith Spirits, you can purchase Slorm Reaper Affinity to Cory Ironbender. And just like Spirits, there are 7 different Slorm Reaper Affinites to upgrade.
You can get up to 100 points in each Slorm Reaper Affinity. Each point grants:
+0.5% Reaper Damage
+0.5 Effect Multiplier
+1% Slorm Reaper Experience Gain
+0.5% Reduced Primordial Cap
These bonuses are applied to every Slorm Reaper wrought by the upgraded Affinity.
So if you choose to upgrade Fulgurorn's Affinity, then every Slorm Reaper wrought by Fulgurorn will benefit from these bonuses, on every class.

[h2]New Mechanic: Forging Slorm Reapers[/h2]
Reapersmith Spirits also allow you to forge Slorm Reapers for your other classes.
The prerequisite is to own the Slorm Reaper with at least one of your characters.
So if you own Sword of the Nimble Warrior, you will be able to craft Bow of the Nimble Warrior or Staff of the Nimble Warrior for your Huntress or your Mage.
This works on Primordial Slorm Reapers as well.

[h2]New Slorm Reaper: Fate-Crusher[/h2]
A new Slorm Reaper has been added into the game. It is sold by Cory Ironbender and cannot be looted.

[h2]New Boss: The Siege Leader[/h2]
A new Boss, exclusive to The Great Forge, has been added into the game.
It has multiple Challenges tied to it and can spawn at (almost) any time during an Expedition in The Great Forge. Spawning and defeating The Siege Leader gives you access to the new Reaper Runes, and later on, to Greater Rewards.

[h2]New Mechanic: Reaper Runes[/h2]
Reaper Runes have been added into the game. They are unlocked by defeating The Siege Leader inside The Great Forge.
There are 28 Reaper Runes:

• 7 Runes of Activation
  
• 14 Runes of Effect
  
• 7 Runes of Enhancement
  

Runes of Effects are based on Slorm Reaper Effects, so you will get to find Rune of the Nimble Warrior, or The Most Powerful Rune etc...
An Effect Rune is triggered when you fill the condition of the associated Rune of Activation. So the default setting to get Runes to work is to have at least 1 Rune of Activation linked to 1 Rune of Effect.
Runes of Enhancement adds a bonus to the configuration.


[h2]Cataclysm Changes[/h2]
Since Cataclysms are part of the Challenges inside The Great Forge, and that we needed them to have multiple difficulty settings, we've had to change some of them that didn't have a proper value to be played on:

• Tenacious: Instead of granting complete Immunity to Crowd Control, it now grants % Tenacity (up to 100%). Which is exactly the same, except that the default version of Tenacious, found in Expeditions only grants 75% Tenacity, which makes it easier to play around.
  
• Reincarnation: Now grants a Chance to be revived upon dying. The default version is 100% Chance, but lesser versions (down to 25% Chance) can also be found inside The Great Forge.
  

[h2]New Cataclysms[/h2]
4 New Cataclysms have been added into the game.

1. Hermetic: grants resistance to Damage over Time (up to 100%).
   
2. Double Down: grants Recast Chance (up to 100%).
   
3. Multiplication: grants Additional Projectiles (up to 2).
   
4. Proliferation: grants Increased Area Size (up to 100%).
   

[h2]Slorm Reaper Damage[/h2]
We've noticed that a significant amount of Slorm Reaper were ignored by players simply because they lacked proper base damage to be considered. We've also noticed that The Most Powerful Reaper was present in numerous builds despite its lack of interesting mechanics.
Right now, we've only made change to Reaper Damage. Mechanics and effects were not modified.

Nerfed Reapers:
The Most Powerful Reaper: -45% Reaper Damage.
Reaper of deadly Accuracy: -15%
Big Fury Reaper: -10%

Buffed Reapers:
Overdriving Reaper: +25% Reaper Damage.
Reaper of the Manabender: +50%
Reaper of Vindictive Slam: +50%
Reaper of the Sharpshooter: +75%
Reaper of the Untouchable One: +75%
Aïondee, The Reaper of the Rising Sun: +100%
Reaper of Inner Fireworks: +100%
Mana Harvesting Reaper: +100%
The Ancestral Legacy Reaper: +100%
Reaper of the Lifebender: +200%
Reaper of Necromancy: +200%
Reaper of Retaliating Foresight: +200%
Slormandrite Reaper of the Shaman: +200%
Gold-Plated Reaper: +500%
Thornbite Reaper of Idleness: +500%
Reaper of the Trainee: +1000% (Base Damage only)

[h2]Slorm Reaper Bonus Level[/h2]
Bonus Levels found on Equipment has been replaced by Slorm Reaper Affinity Bonus.

The Bonus Level was heavily favoring Slorm Reapers with a high Level Multiplier such as The Most Powerful Reaper (almost quadrupling its damage between Level 100 and Level 155).
The new Slorm Reaper Affinity should be equally helpful for all Slorm Reapers.

The Most Powerful Reaper was:
At Level 100, Damage range is 3524 - 5502.
At Level 155, Damage range is 13228 - 20686.

The Most Powerful Reaper now is:
At Level 100: 1866 - 3058
At Level 100 + Max Affinity: 3265 - 5351

The idea behind these changes is to bring all Slorm Reapers into roughly the same damage range.
The Most Powerful Reaper still is the most powerful damage-wise, simply not by THAT much anymore.



[h2]Slorm Reaper Loot[/h2]
Slorm Reapers will now drop at specific points during the Story so that new players are given various options to choose from early on instead of having to wait for Expeditions to get them. This change was made because Breaches do not appear on most missions, preventing players to loot Slorm Reapers.
Slorm Reapers can only drop this way when you're doing a Mission for the first time.

[h2]The Mighty Knight Changes:[/h2]
For these changes, we were mostly looking to change the feeling of the following skills because they felt clunky to use. An in-depth rework is probably still necessary.

Ascension
Has been reworked to be a much faster jump that no longer "interrupts" your movement flow.

• Fast Rebound now has 5 Upgrades instead of 10. Fast Rebound also reduced the Cooldown by 0.5% instead of 1%.
  

Crest Shield
Has been reworked and no longer locks you in a "cast" state, meaning you can move normally AND cast while Crest Shield has been casted.

• Inner Journey has been removed and has been replaced by Independance Day.
  
• Independance Day: Crest Shield now rotates where it has been casted before coming back to you.
  

Whirlwind
Has been reworked to, well... feel better.

• Size is 30% larger.
  
• Knockback has been set to 0.
  
• Cooldown has been reduced from 1.5 seconds to 0.5 seconds.
  
• Whirlwind used to deal damage to every enemy within its range every 15 frames (called a Rotation), which didn't offer the best feeling overall.
  Instead, Whirlwind now deals damage to an enemy as soon as it gets within its range then every 15 frames. This timer is handled separately for every enemy.
  

[h2]Enemies Weight[/h2]
The weight of Enemies is now taken into account when trying to pull them. So when you use a skill like Rain of Arrows' Hunting Net, a light Soldier will be easily pulled toward the center while a heavier enemy like a Fallen Knight will slightly move. Same goes for Elite enemies. Weight is also more effective on the edges of a pulling area.

Affected Skills are:

• Knight: Grappling Hook - Captain Hook
  
• Knight: Whirlwind - Static Vortex
  
• Knight: Ascension - Gravity Force
  
• Huntress: Rain of Arrows - Hunting Net
  
• Huntress: Traps with the Legendary item Gravity Belt
  
• Huntress: Daggers - Daggers of Polarization
  
• Mage: Arcane Breach - Gravitational Force
  
• Mage: Orb of the Arcane Master - Orb of the Obliteration Master
  

[h2]Story[/h2]

• The Prison 10 - The Ghost of the Prison: Olorin will now always wait for you before moving on.
  
• The Prison 11 - The Dungeons: Removed a room that was not accessible.
  
• The Prison 12 - Grotagrom:
  
  • Max Life has been reduced by 30%.
    
  • The duration of Stuns on the player has been halved.
    
• The Mage Academy 9 - Alarin: Damage from Massive Projectiles has been reduced by 40%.
  

[h2]Balance[/h2]

• Savagery 45: now grants Raw Damage based on your Missing Life instead of your Missing Mana.
  
• Reaper of Necromancy: Squires now have Life equal to 100% of your Max Mana instead of 30%.
  

[h2]Bugs Fixed[/h2]
Classes

• The Fierce Huntress: Rain of Arrows - Hunting Net now has an Area of Effect tag and is properly affected by Increased Area of Effect
  
• The Mighty Knight: Crest Shield - Original Use should now display the correct amount of Increased Damage.
  

Slorm Reapers

• Reaper of Deadly Accuracy: Tooltip has been changed to reflect that Exposed Armor can be triggered by Support Skills.
  
• Reaper of Mana Harvest: Mana Harvest & Mana Harvest explosion should be properly inherit from Area Increased Effect.
  

Various

• Mastery acquired from Equipment should now be properly displayed on Skills.
  
• Overdrive's FX is now properly triggered from the enemy that triggered it and no longer from us.
  
• The Slorm Temple: Rays from Containment Field should now be properly destroyed as soon as the room has been cleared.
  
• Cataclysms Rewards should now properly scale with Wrath Level.
  
• Suffering Souls should no longer get stuck in random parts of the environment.
  
• Fixed a few typos.
  

[h2]Performance[/h2]
I've made quite a bit of changes on enemy's AI that should significantly increase the performance when many enemies are on screen.
These changes should not improve the issue causing the game to freeze when enemies are being hit by large or numerous AoEs. But it should definitely increase your FPS when many enemies are on screen.

That's about it!

Hello everyone!

Another month! Another Slormite Chronicle!


First and foremost,
In the last Slormite Chronicles, we've announced that our goal was to release The Great Forge Update before today. Unfortunately, we were not able to make it in time.

We're sorry about the delay, and we feel pretty bad about how much time this update took us. But I also think we're close to something really nice and fun so I don't want to mess up the release because we failed a couple of features or left gamebreaking bugs. I really hope it's for the best and that the amount of work we've put in will pay off.

However, we are now confident enough in what we have to give a proper release date: The Great Forge update will be released on September 27.
I believe we could be ready a week earlier, but The Slormancer will be participating in an online festival that could/should bring a good amount of new players. So that wouldn't be a good time for us to update a new potentially unstable build. So we decided to postpone.

That being said, this time it's for real.



This last few weeks, we've been working on polishing The Great Forge and making the final additions to the mode. If you don't know anything about it or want a refresher, I suggest you read Slormite Chronicles #15 and Slormite Chronicles #16.

Here are the latest (and final) additions:

[h2]Challenges Rewards: War Chest Effects[/h2]
Small reminder: the War Chest is where your Rewards from The Great Forge are stored. Every few waves, you can either decide to loot it and move out, or to keep filling it and risk losing everything if you die. You can get all sorts of Rewards inside your War Chest, such as Goldus or Equipment but also War Chest Quality or Quantity multiplier.



In the last Slormite Chronicles, I briefly mentioned that we were thinking about effects to apply to your War Chest. The example given last month was: "Increases War Chest Quantity by 2% for every item type inside your War Chest".
Well, we really liked the idea so we created 32 of what we call War Chest Effects.



These Rewards are usually associated with greater Challenges and are quite rare. But we want them to be gamechanging. If you find a War Chest Effect and manage to build your Rewards around it, then we want it to be extremely rewarding.
There is a good amount of luck in getting all the right stuff at the right moment, so we are ok with giving lots of rewards when you get everything. This is not meant to be linear farming.

Here are a few examples:

• For the rest of the Run, your War Chest Quantity is equal to your War Chest Quality.
  
• When looting your War Chest, if you should loot exactly 1 Equipment, it is guaranteed to be of Legendary rarity.
  
• The amount of Goldus inside your War Chest becomes equal to 500% of the Slorm inside your War Chest.
  
• For the rest of the Run, if there is at least one of each Reapersmith Spirit inside your War Chest, following Rewards are increased by 100%.
  

The idea is also to give a lot of value to some lesser Rewards such as Slorm and a non mathematically-resolved Great Forge. What if the most efficient way to farm Goldus inside the Great Forge was now to get Slorm Rewards and a proper War Chest Effect?

[h2]The Siege Leader[/h2]
This is the boss of the environment.
The Siege Leader has unique Challenges applied to him that can either increase his Life or Damage, the variety of its patterns etc... Everytime you pick a specific Siege Leader Challenge, you increase his spawn chance by a small amount.

He has a small chance to spawn every few Waves that slowly increases every wave up to 100% at Wave 100. Obviously, if you don't want to wait until Wave 100 to defeat him, then getting Siege Leader Challenges is the way to go. This will result in a faster spawn, but a stronger boss. It's up to you.



[h2]Obelisks[/h2]
Obelisks are the final addition of The Great Forge. They are a unique type of enemy that are only spawned through Challenges.




Basically, Obelisks Challenges create an Obelisk inside The Great Forge, with a massive Life pool and good resistances. Once they are there, they apply a negative effect (eg: While Obelisk of Revocation is active, you cannot restore Life.) that will stop only once they are destroyed.
This means you have to take care of your current Wave AND get rid of the Obelisk as soon as possible.



But there's a twist. Obelisks always come with a specific Obelisk Reward. Basically, once you've dealt with the Obelisk, it will turn into an Allied Obelisk, transforming its negative effect into a positive one (eg: Allied Obelisk of Revocation adds +12% War Chest Quantity to your War Chest everytime you complete a Wave) but now you have to keep them alive and defend them from the Waves to keep their effect active.


[h2]The Great Forge: Entry Price[/h2]
Given the generosity of The Great Forge regarding rewards and enemy density, we've decided to add a small Elder Slorm fee to get in. This should not be an issue but still something to take into account. I can't give the definitive price since I believe it is going to be changed before the release. Also, since War Chest Rewards are based on your Wrath Level, the Elder Slorm fee will also be Wrath-dependant.
This is basically just a heads up so that you can upgrade your Elder Slorm jauge and fill it before the release. :)


That's about it for today.

We'll upload a Patch Notes with every change and addition we've made to the game a couple of days before the release.

Have a nice day everyone!

Hello everyone!

It's the 6th of the month! It's Chronicle time!
So, if you need a quick reminder of what we're currently working on, I suggest you read Slormite Chronicle #14 and Slormite Chronicle #15 because I might talk about things you're not familiar with. But basically, we're working on The Great Forge, an endgame mode, and it's looking good.



Gameplay is coming along nicely.
We now have a proper wave sytem in place and everything is playable and fun, which is a good thing.




Right now, enemies spawn in various locations and your goal is to outlast them. Every wave consists of around 75 to 300+ enemies (depending on your Wrath Level, the Challenges you're facing and the actual Wave you're facing, so it gets harder and harder over time).
It's going to be faster paced than the regular Battlefied Expedition, with a higher density of trash enemies and packed compositions.

We've tried various ways to spawn enemies inside The Great Forge and we ended up with a simplified lane system: Enemies can come from 7 different lanes all around the Forge, with usually 2 to 3 different lanes active every wave.

Every 10 waves, there is a special wave, with a much higher number of enemies coming from all 7 lanes. Once, you've dealt with it, you have the opportunity to open the War Chest (which I'll talk about a bit later) or to keep going for another 10 waves.





After you defeat a wave, you'll get to choose among 3 Challenges of with different rewards every time.
Challenges can have numerous effects such as increasing the strength of enemies, spawning a Boss or adding new attack patterns to it, or adding a Cataclysm effect etc... And can last from various amount of time: from 1 wave to the rest of the run.

The harder and longer the Challenge is, the better the reward attached to it is.
Once you complete a Challenge, the reward goes into the War Chest.

The Siege Leader
The Siege Leader is the new boss we're adding in The Great Forge.
In here, you get to choose WHEN you want to face him (using Cory's Challenges). And since it adds various bonus effects once you defeat it to your War Chest (which I'll talk about below), you might want to wait as much as you can. But the longer you wait, the harder he'll be.
Defeating the Siege Leader will also be the only way to get your hands on the new Reaper Runes (see the previous Slormite Chronicles).






As I've mentioned above, rewards from completed Challenges get into the War Chest.
You can see what's inside the War Chest at any point during the game, but it can only be looted once every 10 waves.
Obviously, if you are defeated you will lose what's inside.


This is a very empty War Chest, just to give you an idea of what it looks like.

Among the possible rewards, you'll get to loot Reapersmith Spirits which are the main currency that you can use at Cory's Shop (to upgrade Reaper Affinity, Reaper Runes and purchase Slorm Reapers for your other classes). This will be the most important loot there since they can only be looted with Cory's Challenges.
Also, when the Reapersmith Spirit of the reward is the same as the Slorm Reaper you're currently using, you'll get a massive reward bonus. So you can actually farm much faster the Reapersmith Spirits you're looking for.

On top of that, you will be able to be rewarded with Goldus, Slorm, Fragments, Equipment, Slormites and Slormelines.
For Slormites, Fragments, Equipment and Slormelines, the reward is random in the sense that each reward is a "random roll" and can very well be an Epic or a Legendary item (or high tier Slormites).
Basically, you accumulate "random rolls" that are all "resolved" when you open the War Chest.

But there's a twist: there are two other types of rewards: War Chest Quality & War Chest Quantity.
The War Chest Quantity reward increases the quantity of everything that's inside the War Chest by a set percentage (depending on the difficulty of the associated challenge, works on past and future rewards).
While the War Chest Quality increases the chance to get Equipment, Fragments, Slormites or Slormelines of higher quality.

We're also thinking of rewards such as "Increases War Chest Quantity by 2% for every item type inside your War Chest" and so on.



It's a matter of weeks, but since this update is so heavy we have lots of testing to do. So unfortunately, I don't believe we can be ready for August, but only by a few days. Our goal is to get it done before the next Slormite Chronicles (so before September 6).

That being said, I feel like I have to talk about the time it's taking to release this update a bit more. Clearly we didn't anticipate that it would take so long and we should have cut the update in 2 smaller updates, just so you guys get something new to play with every month or so.

Also, we (almost) only get positive vibes when we post Slormite Chronicles and (almost) never feel pressured by our players, besides a couple of negative reviews, which is fair. But we also want you to know that the stress we put on ourselves grows day after day between two updates, just because we're dead serious about finishing this game and because we know that taking 4 to 5 months to release an update is well... not so great.

The positive part is that this update is full of changes, reworks and new mechanics so we have that going on for us which is nice.

Once this update is done, we'll rework the Road Map entirely, and work on smaller chunks of content that can be released much faster. Things that are easy to produce and that brings a lot to the game.

We'll make sure that this kind of delay between two updates never happens again.

Have a nice day everyone!

Hello everyone!

If you're not a regular Slormite Chronicle reader, or if you're not following the Road Map of the game, here's a quick recap: We're currently working on the last part of "The Mage Academy Update" which will introduce a new end game mode called The Great Forge. We haven't revealed much about it yet, but everything's coming along nicely.

We have lots to talk about, so let's get to it.

Gameplay and Rewards



I'll start with what we've made the least progress on. We've worked on a few things, including the environment itself. We also have most of the mechanics down but everything is still very rough around the edges.
But basically, here's what you can expect in The Great Forge:
Your goal will be to outlast as many waves as possible to get as much rewards as possible. Easy.

Every few waves (we still have to figure out the pacing) you will be facing Cory's Challenges:
You will have to make a choice between 3 Challenges that will either add a new Cataclysm for the next few waves, make enemies stronger for the rest of the run, increase the number of enemies, add elites to the next waves, add new attack patterns to the boss, increase its spawn chance, spawn a new type of enemy we're working on, etc...

You may have guessed it, we're introducing a new boss (codename "Siege Leader") that will randomly spawn during The Great Forge and that will get stronger over time.

Each Challenge will have a different / bigger Reward based on its difficulty. Once you complete a Challenge, and once you feel like you have completed enough Challenges or that the difficulty of the cumulated Challenges is getting out of hand, you will be able to leave The Great Forge and collect your rewards.

The reward system inside The Great Forge will allow you to unlock new Reaper Runes (which we talk about below), or upgrade Reaper Runes you already own, or Reapersmith Spirits (which we talk about below as well). That's on top of more regular rewards such as Goldus, Slorm, Equipment and such. We're also adding a "multiplier" type of reward such as "The value of your next Rewards are increased by 25%" or "The value of your current rewards are increased by 10%".

Wraths will work just like in Battlefield Expeditions: Enemies will be stronger but Rewards will be better.

That's the very basic idea behind The Great Forge and we'll be able to share actual screenshots and informations in the next Slormite Chronicle.

The reward system will also tend to reward you with Reaper Runes and Reapersmith Spirits related to the Slorm Reaper you're using. As an example, Challenges that reward you with 3 Astorias Spirits will instead reward you with 9 Astorias Spirits if you're currently using a Slorm Reaper wrought by Astorias.

One of our goals with The Great Forge is to emphasize a bit more on Reapersmiths.



Reapersmith Spirits:
We're adding 7 new currencies called Reapersmith Spirits.
Each Spirit is tied to a Slorm Reaper Reapersmith (or family):

• Spirit of Astorias
  
• Spirit of Adrianne
  
• Spirit of Beigarth
  
• Spirit of Cory
  
• Spirit of Smaloron
  
• Spirit of Fulgurorn
  
• Spirit of Hagan
  

We're adding a new layer called Reaper Runes. We've explored a different approach from what we talked about in the last Slormite Chronicle. Basically, our goal is to create a new "minor" layer of customization for the player, that reuses Hall-of-Fame Slorm Reapers effects in different ways.

There are three types of Reaper Runes: Activation Runes, Effect Runes and Enhancement Runes.
Right now, there are:
7 Activation Runes (1 for each Reapersmith)
14 Effect Runes (2 for each Reapersmith)
7 Enhancement Runes (1 for each Reapersmith)

The idea is to combine 1 of each to create a unique Effect that suits your build the most.
The only rule is that you cannot use an Effect Rune that is the same as your current Slorm Reaper.

DISCLAIMER: Reaper Runes have not been tested or balanced yet so do not take values inside these tooltips for granted. They will most definitely be changed.

Activations Runes offer various trigger conditions. Once you meet the trigger condition, you trigger the associated Effect Rune.



Effect Runes grant you a temporary buff or a single trigger strongly inspired by Slorm Reapers.



And finally, Enhancement Runes allow you to upgrade your Effect Runes or modify your Activation Rune to customize the effect even more.



Each Rune can be upgraded up to Level 15 by using Reapersmith Spirits at Cory Ironbender's Shop or by playing inside The Great Forge where you can loot Rune Upgrades via the reward system.

Just like Slorm Reapers or Equipment, you will be able to change each Rune at any moment.

Slorm Reapers Levels from Equipment
First and foremost, we are removing the bonus Levels that are granted by Equipment to Slorm Reapers.
This will be replaced by Slorm Reaper Affinities, a layer that we will talk about below that is both more progressive and more flexible.
Here are the reasons for that change:

1. The original goal was to ease the transition from a Slorm Reaper to another by allowing the player to purchase the first few levels, which almost never happens.
   
2. The upgrade is not progressive enough. Most of the time, players get to the beginning of the end game (which is when you start using the Blacksmith) with a Level 70 Slorm Reaper and get their +55 Levels for a small amount of Goldus. This usually tend to double or even triple the Damage of the Slorm Reaper without any form of progression.
   
3. When thinking about the +55 levels, we unfortunately completely ignored the fact that some Slorm Reapers had a much stronger Damage multiplier than others. These +55 Levels are not equal for every Slorm Reaper at all.
   
   Here are couple of examples of the Level 100 / 155 differences:
   The Most Powerful Reaper:
   At Level 100: 3524 - 5502 Damage
   At Level 155: 13228 - 20686
   So about a 275% Increase of the Max Damage Range.
   
   Reaper of Necromancy:
   At Level 100: 377 - 527
   At Level 155: 717 - 1005
   So about a 90% Upgrade in Max Damage Range.
   
   It means that a Slorm Reaper that does not have a strong Damage multiplier gets even worse at level 155. This was never intended. We kind of forgot how fast multipliers tend to go.
   

Slorm Reapers Affinity
Slorm Reapers Affinity is a new type of Upgrade that you will be able to purchase at Cory Ironbender's shop with the use of Reapersmith Spirits.



There are 7 Slorm Reaper Affinities, one for each Reapersmith.
Each can be upgraded up to Level 100 using Reapersmith Spirits that you can find in The Great Forge.

The previous Slorm Reaper Levels granted by Equipment will be replaced by Slorm Reaper Affinity. And for the sake of round stuff, it will be capped at 50.

This means that when the update comes out, your Reaper Damage will be reduced, especially if you're playing with The Most Powerful Reaper or a Slorm Reaper with a high Damage multiplier.
For The Most Powerful Reaper, if you had it at Level 155, you will get back to:
3524 - 5502 + 25% = 4 405 - 6 877 Reaper Damage.

After a bit of farming in The Great Forge, you will be able to get back to :
3524 - 5502 + 75% = 6 167 - 9 628 Reaper Damage.
That's about a 50% nerf in the end (Since Level 155 was 13 228 - 20 686 Reaper Damage).

So you will be able to exceed Level 100 and get to Level 150 with the dedicated Equipment.
However, Levels you purchase from Cory are permanent and bound to your save (not your Character).
Slorm Reaper Affinity is a way to permanently upgrade the strength of all the Slorm Reapers of the same "family". They get stronger, are easier to Level and it is also easier to trigger their Primordial form.

Balancing Slorm Reapers' Damage
Most Slorm Reapers are often immediately disregarded by players as soon as they are found because they simply lack Reaper Damage. And even though they add fancy effects or powerful synergies, they cannot compete with the strongest Slorm Reapers (such as The Most Powerful Reaper).

When designing Slorm Reapers, we either try to create a Reaper that is strong from the start that does not require the player to build around it but that does not scale well in the late game or the complete opposite: a Reaper that does not immediately shine but get immensely stronger when you build properly around it.

Easier said than done. And unfortunately, we tend to not give enough Reaper Damage to these Reapers, which lead them to never see the light.

So with this update we are also buffing the base damage of all the Slorm Reapers that needs it, by a lot, if necessary. Our goal here is not to nerf The Most Powerful Reaper for no reason (which is done by removing the +55 Levels from Equipment). We actually want players to find creative options with their Slorm Reapers and get back to what The Most Powerful Reaper was offering with a dedicated build and a good use of synergies. Not just brute force.


Unlocking Slorm Reapers for the first time feels natural and happens at a pace that we currently like, however, we want to change (or at least add new options to) how Slorm Reapers are unlocked for your other classes.
Right now, if you find a Slorm Reaper (even a Primordial Reaper) with The Fierce Huntress and think "oh this would be nice on my Mage", then you basically have to grind until RNG gets you the Reaper you want, which can take quite a bit of time. And for Primordial Slorm Reapers, you then have to farm it all the way back to their Primordial form.

This is why we are introducing a way to forge Slorm Reapers.
To be able to forge a Slorm Reaper, you simply must have found it with at least one other character. This includes Primordial Slorm Reapers as well, though you will also need the regular version to be able to forge a Primordial version.

Reapersmith Spirits costs are heavily subject to change.


If you're curious about the last button in Cory Ironbender's shop. It is where you'll get to purchase a new and unique Slorm Reaper called "Fate-Crusher, Reaper of the Seven".




That's about it for new stuff.

This Chronicle has introduced quite a bit of changes on top of new things being added, so please let us know what you think about all this.


As for the release date.
To be honest, this is the biggest update we've made so far and we're not yet done. So please be patient a little longer, we're getting there. And I believe it'll be worth the wait.

Our best guess for a release date is mid-August.

We're falling behind on the Road Map, but we believe that's a good thing. After all, this update will add an unplanned boss, an unplanned environment and an unplanned layer of customization, on top of various unplanned changes and features. :)

Have a nice day everyone!