The Slormancer News

Hi everyone!

Here's the complete of changes for today's patch:

Steam Cloud
There is now a Cloud/Local save manager to handle conflicts.
You will most likely get a warning when launching the game the next time.
It will look like this:



Do not panic. if you've been playing since The Slorm Temple update, picking your local save should be the correct option. If in doubt, the playtime should be a good indicator.

The game will take care of the rest and normally upload to Steam Cloud as it used to before.

If you accidentally pick the wrong file, you will have the opportunity to recover so don't do anything and contact us.


Balance
Just a quick balance pass on Spiders : Web's timer is no longer resetted if you already are affected by a Web effect.
On top of that, when the Web effect ends, you have a small immunity window where you are immune to webs so it should be much easier to escape most situations.


The Slorm Temple
Since there were some issues with finding Olorin, we've added a couple of infos:

• Olorin now has its own minimap icon.
  
• Olorin now explains where he is located when he gets back to the village.
  

• Scaling of enemies should now work properly in The Slorm Temple after floor 260+.
  
• You should no longer be stuck in the Temple Shrine when it lifts up.
  

That's about it for now!
Have fun!

Hello everyone!
We're back with another Slormite Chronicles to keep you updated with the development of The Slormancer. And since we've published a rather large update last week, we have nothing super exciting to share right now besides our plans for the near future.

Here's what we have in store for the upcoming weeks:

[h2]Bug Fix Patch[/h2]
This monday, we will upload a patch that should fix the last remaining issues and bugs that were found in The Slorm Temple update.

I've also added a proper way of handling Cloud and Local saves. From now on, if there is a conflict between your saves, you will get a message upon starting the game asking you to choose the save you want to keep. So you should no longer lose progress when playing offline.

It requires a bit of testing on our side so I'm delaying this patch until monday morning so I can fix bugs quickly if things go wrong.

[h2]Treasure Chests[/h2]
Shortly after, we will introduce Treasure Chests into the game.
This is a bonus feature that was supposed to be in The Slorm Temple update but we did not had the chance to finish it before the deadline. So we plan to add this as a small content update later this month once we're done.

This is a super simple feature: you will be able to find chests containing various kinds of loot during Battlefield Expeditions and inside The Slorm Temple. Nothing crazy, just something cool and new to look for during your runs.






[h2]Story Act II[/h2]
Once we're done with these couple of patches, we will move onto Act II. This includes new missions, dialogues, bosses and a new Ancestral Stone to get to tier 3 in your Ancestral Legacy.

We will give more infos about Act II, the number of missions and bosses a bit later, probably in our next Chronicle since things are not set in stone on our end right now.

[h2]Act I Rework[/h2]
We also have plans to rework Act I, and try to add new enemies, various exciting events and objectives as well since we are well aware that it feels pretty repetitive for a good amount of players right now and even discourages some to try the rest of the content.

If you happen to have complaints about Act I and/or specific missions that felt tedious or boring, or if you have specific things in mind you would like to see improved or even cool concepts and ideas of missions that would fit in The Slormancer. Please, feel free to share in the comments.


That's about it for now!
Have a nice day everyone!

Hello everyone!

Bugs Fixes
I've published a serie of small hotfixes that were meant to fix various bugs created by The Slorm Temple Update. This one should fix the final crashes that were remaining and the most important bugs.
Some minor issues are still present and should be fixed within the week.

Steam Cloud Issues
I found out that since the introduction of The Slorm Temple Update, Steam Cloud wasn't working properly anymore. Your saves are currently only saved locally.

I'm sorry about this but please note, that I'm working on a patch to restore Steam Cloud as soon as possible with a proper and safe way to manage local and cloud saves.

However, if you want to move your save files to a different computer, you can find them here:
C:/Users//AppData/Local/The_Slormancer
You're looking for the file called save_1.

Also, if you want to get your saves back from Steam Cloud because you are a returning player and you are playing on a new computer, you can download your saves directly from Steam Cloud here:
https://store.steampowered.com/account/remotestorage
And paste the files there: C:/Users//AppData/Local/The_Slormancer

If for some reason you can't get your save back or you think that you lost your progress, contact me on Discord, on our server: https://discord.com/invite/tkYxSuB.
I will most likely be able to help you out.

Hello everyone!

This is it! After a bit of a delay compared to what we anticipated, the first content update of our Early Access is now live.

As we've mentioned in our previous Slormite Chronicle, we had to work on a lot on technical stuff to make sure everyone could play The Slormancer properly. So we had to cut our update in half to offer new content for July as promised.

From now on, future updates should be closer together and mostly focused on content for a while.

[h2]The Slorm Temple:[/h2]
This update brings The Slorm Temple as the first "true" endgame content. It is still in a raw form and will be polished along the way. We plan to add bossed and various events to it but we feel like it is a nice and different challenge to what the regular Battlefield Expedition offers.

We've covered what to expect in The Slorm Temple here in our latest Slormite Chronicle if you haven't read it. If you don't want to spoil yourself, the only thing you need to know if you're already deep into the game is that you will have to unlock Olorin, The Archmage during Expeditions, just like Friedrich or Rick Manalan. The prerequisite to unlock Olorin is to be at least level 23. Once you found him, he will guide you through the various steps to get to The Slorm Temple.


[h2]Breach Events:[/h2]
The second big change is what we called "Breach Events". Basically, it adds various challenges and random encounters to regular Breaches. Now Breaches can:
- spawn multiple Waves of enemies before closing.
- be Cataclysmic and add a random modifier to your run until you close enough Breaches to get rid of it.
- be Exalted and grant you a random super strong bonus for a short duration.

This is a first step toward making Expeditions less boring over time.


[h2]New Enemies:[/h2]
This update also brings 5 new enemies that were designed to be a bit more mechanically challenging.
If you're new to the game, they will be unlocked through Influence earned via Expeditions. However, if your Influence is already high enough at the moment of the update, all 5 enemies will be instantly available.


Changes:
We've also taken the opportunity to make a few changes to some mechanics:
- The pool of enemies is now changed every Floor during a Battlefied Expedition
- Retaliation Damage is now based on Damage dealt BEFORE any kind of damage reduction (so getting Armor or Resistances is no longer counter-intuitive to Retaliation builds)

The Mighty Knight:
- Mastering Retaliation now reads: "Damage received after damage mitigation is now added to Retaliation Damage."


[h2]Bugs Fixed:[/h2]
The Fierce Huntress:
- Bad Medicine should now work properly, even on Elemental Damage.

Bugs:
- Dealing Damage with Arcane Breach should no longer trigger particles all over the area
- Looting lots of gold should no longer slow your FPS down
- Fixed a bug where the Influence bar would fill more than its frame after reaching Influence 100.
- Fixed a bug where Extracting a Slormite from a Tier 16+ Item didn't work
- Fixed an issue with some Breach compositions spawning enemies outside the room

Crashs:
- Fixed a crash when hovering over the Sort button while at Jemma's store
- Fixed a rare crash occuring when switching class WHILE casting a skill


Note for Chinese users:
To release this update faster, we've skipped the translation of the new content. Our plan is to get this and our next update translated at the same time. Sorry for the inconvenience! It should not take that long.


Final Note:
One more thing, I (Ashmore) am all alone at the time of this update and for a bit of time because HyonD is going to be a bit busy on a very important side project. We're not going to get into detail but let's just say the Slormite family just got bigger! Congrats my dude!


Have fun everyone!

Hello everyone!

We've made good progress on the first part of our Road Map. However, we've been delayed quite a bit by the numerous bug patches and by upgrading our Game Engine, which was mandatory to let everyone play the game.

Releasing The Prison Update as a whole in July is unfortunately no longer an option for us. That being said, we've decided to cut it in half so we still plan to deliver actual new (and hopefully fun) content by the end of the month.

The Prison Update was supposed to be:

• New Feature: Breach Events
  
• New Endgame Content: The Tower of Despair
  
• 5 New Enemies
  
• New Act (New Story Missions and Bosses) - Delayed
  
• New Ancestral Tree Tier - Delayed
  
• Increased Level Cap - Delayed
  

Basically, we're going to cut it in half, and deliver the new Feature, new Endgame and the new Enemies in time for July and take the month of August to work on the new Act.

We're sorry about the delay. We definitely made a mistake by announcing the release date of an Update even before the actual release of the game and without a single clue of the amount of feedback and bugs and issues we were going to get.

The July Update should be available anywhere between July 26 and 31. Depending on the time we need to polish things out. The rest of the Update should come around August-September.

Now, I'd like to develop on bit on what's to come in July, and what we have in store:


[h2]The Endgame Content: The Tower of Despair[/h2]

First thing first, this was a placeholder name and it has been renamed to "The Slorm Temple". It still kind of is a Tower, but there's Slorm instead of despair in it...
That would be a different story if the game was called The Despairmancer...

Anyway. At first, it was supposed to be a basic "ladder" kind-of content where you could just endlessly grind environments and climb up harder and harder floors to figure out where your character/build stands against others.

It has evolved quite a bit even though the idea remains the same:
You progress through harder and harder floors of The Slorm Temple but unlike Battlefield Expeditions, floors reached are "unlocked", meaning that if you reach Floor 32, you can come back to Floor 32 whenever you want from the Expeditions menu. There's actual progress to be made.
Enemies there benefit from various multipliers for most of their stats based on the Floor you're in so it shouldn't be as straigthforward as climbing Wrath Levels.

The Slorm Temple also has its own unique environment. It wasn't planned but we had cool ideas we wanted to try, so we did! It is an ancient Temple that builds itself along the way so you never know where you're going or where it ends.



Your goal in The Slorm Temple is to get to the end of a Floor where you'll find a Slorm Shrine containing Pure Slorm. Which brings me to my next point:

We are introducing two new Endgame currencies that will be used to access and upgrade Endgame modes.

• Elder Slorm (Black Slorm): it is found on Elite enemies and allows you to access The Slorm Temple.
  
• Pure Slorm (White Slorm): It can only be found by completing floors in The Slorm Temple. The more you progress in the Temple, the more Pure Slorm you will find.
  

Now here's the twist:
Olorin the Archmage (an NPC that will become available with this Update) is the one that can open The Slorm Temple, and he has to stay inside the Temple for you to make progress. However, he is also the one selling the various Upgrades that you can purchase with Pure Slorm. Which means that in order to purchase Upgrades, you have to get Olorin back to the Village, causing The Slorm Temple to collapse and your progress to reset (basically, a "Prestige" mechanic, if you're familiar with the idea).

If you make good progress in The Slorm Temple, and if you use the right tools and upgrades, you will then be able to climb back up faster and find better Rewards along the way.



This means we're also introducing Olorin as a new "Merchant". He does various things:

• Selling Upgrades for Elder Slorm and Pure Slorm: Purchasing those will let you get back faster in The Slorm Temple and also get better Rewards.
  
• Selling Upgrades for Pure Stats: We've introduced Pure Stats in our latest update, and Olorin will let you upgrade the Drop rate of Pure Stats but most importantly their Max Roll.
  Basically a Pure Stat was able to roll between 101 and 110% of a regular Roll. Olorin sells a +0.45% Boost to that roll, that you can purchase up to 200 times for a +90% upgrade on Max Rolls. Meaning that if you bought all the upgrades, you will be able to roll Pure Stats up to 200%.
  
• Selling "Visions": These are buffs that you purchase and that are triggered whenever a condition is met. Example: "Vision of Purity" is triggered whenever you loot an item with Pure Stats that says: "The next Pure Item you find will have at least 2 Pure Stats." They are quite expansive but they're also quite strong, and their effect can also be upgraded with Pure Slorm.
  
• Trading Slorm and Pure Slorm for Elder Slorm: So if you're sitting on a huge amount of Slorm, you will be able to trade it for Elder Slorm and get into The Slorm Temple as soon as possible. Rates are horrible though (but can be upgraded), so make sure you have nothing left to do with Slorm.
  

[h2]The New Feature: Breach Events[/h2]

We're introducing various Events that can occur when you open a Breach, to cut with the monotony of Expeditions / Grind. We're starting with the following additions with more to come.

Breaches Types:
There are 3 kind of Breaches that you will be able to find:

• Standard Breaches: The ones you're used to. They will remain the most common type of Breach you can find.
  
• Cataclysmic Breaches: Enemies inside the Breach will come with 1 or more unique effects called Cataclysms that you will have to take into consideration. We will start with about 15 Cataclysms and expand from here. You can expect this kind of effect:
  
  
  • Reincarnation - Enemies are revived once upon dying.
    
  • Avengers - Enemies gain +10% Increased Damage whenever you kill an enemy nearby.
    
  • Explosive - Enemies explode when dying, dealing Skill Damage in a small radius.
    
  • Unified - Enemies have +5% Increased Damage for each other enemy within a small radius.
    
  • Jetlag - Enemies are immune to damage during 2 seconds upon spawning.
    
  
  
  On top of that, Cataclysmic Breaches will also grant Loot once you close them.
  
• Exalted Breaches: Closing an Exalted Breach will grant you an Exaltation for a set duration. These are superstrong bonuses that will last for a small duration. We will also be using these as an introduction to "Imbued Attacks" since some of these Exaltations will add Elemental effects (the cool-looking attacks you can see on the Trailers) to your skill (and modify their look). You can expect this kind of effect:
  
  
  • Fire Exaltation - Fiery Weapon is equipped and at Max Rank, meaning your Skills will Burn enemies and deal Fire Damage. The Exaltation also grants quite a large Elemental Damage bonus.
    
  • Lightning Exaltation - Electric Overcharge is equipped and at Max Rank, meaning your Skills will cast Electric Arcs toward nearby enemies.
    
  • Speed Exaltation - Will grant you +70% Attack Speed.
    
  • Resilience Exaltation - Will grant you +1000% Retaliation and +100% All Damage Reduction.
    

Additional Waves:
On top of new types of Breaches, each Breach will now spawn a set number of waves of enemies ranging from 1 to 3. Each completed Wave will trigger the Breach Reward (Slorm and Goldus).
Additional Waves will also grant you % Gold Reward and % Slorm Reward Multipliers for the rest of the Expedition, meaning that the longer you stay inside an Expedition, the better the Rewards are for closing Breaches.

At the moment of this Slormite Chronicle, we have nothing but prototypes so we have no screenshots or footage to show for it.


[h2]New Enemies[/h2]
Five new enemies are on their way and will be available for the Update in July:

• The Entangling Spider: casts a Web that roots its target. The Elite version also spawns eggs that will then spawn new Spiders unless destroyed.
  
• The Howling Bat: continuously casts an Area of Effect dealing damage and applying a strong knockback.
  
• The Executioner: Stays idle and applies a strong buffs to his allies if surrounded by at least 3 allies. If left alone, he will relentlessly hunt you down, dealing quite a bit of damage.
  
• The The Suffering Soul and The Condemned Prisoner are the last two enemies we are working on so I have no fresh screenshots.
  The Suffering Soul is a ghost that can get past through enemies and walls, it is immune to Crowd Control and knockback. It will try to get past through you and it will deal damage over time if it does.
  The Condemned Prisoner is a cute little fella stuck in a door throwing boulders. His door will absord the next 3 hits he receives before breaking, at which point he will be defenseless.
  

That's about it!
If something is not clear, or there is something that you don't understand, feel free to ask questions!

Sorry again for the delay on Act 2. We're doing the best we can to deliver this Update as soon as possible.

Cheers!