The Slormancer News

Hello everyone!

As you may know, we've been working on a (THE) Balance Update for the past few months. We're a few days away from being done with it and we will be able to start testing all of our changes and reveal the Patch Notes for the 0.9 Update.

We've made A LOT of changes (more on that below) and it is safe to say that we won't be able to cover everything in our testings, this is why we will first reveal the Patch Notes and talk about the changes with the community, and see if we've missed something. We will then release the Update before the end of June in the Experimental Branch of Early Access. It will be available to everyone that wants to access but the game will most likely be quite unstable.

Once we (and you) are happy with the changes, we will move the Update to the public Early Access branch.

But first thing first, the Patch Notes: It should be available around Tuesday next week. It should give us just enough time to proof-read everything and make sure we haven't missed something.

[h2]About the Patch Notes[/h2]

1. The Patch Notes is about 21 000 character-long. It is about 4-times the size of our largest Slormite Chronicles. And since Steam has a character limit set to 8 000, we've had to host it somewhere else. We will still post the announcement here on Steam and you will be able to react here as well.
   
2. It has about 700 Entries about new mechanics, and balance changes.
   
   • 81 entries for The Mighty Knight.
     
   • 102 entries for The Fierce Huntress.
     
   • 121 entries for The Mischievous Mage.
     
   • 66 entries for the Ancestral Legacy.
     
   • 23 entries for Attributes.
     
   • 34 Legendary Effects changed.
     
   • 38 (out of 72) Slorm Reapers changed.
3. It has its own Navigation menu, that looks like this:
   
   • Attack Speed and Cooldown Reduction
     
   • Auto-Attacks
     
   • Equipment Stats
     
   • Legendary Drops
     
   • Storage
     
   • NPC Unlocks
     
   • Slorm and Refunds
     
   • Blacksmith Costs
     
   • Wrath X Plus
     
   • The Slorm Temple
     
   • The Great Forge
     
   • Affinity and Reaper Runes
     
   • Ancestral Might
     
   • Masteries
     
   • Conversions / Synergies
     
   • Various Changes
     
   • Slorm Reapers
     
   • The Mighty Knight
     
   • The Fierce Huntress
     
   • The Mischievous Mage
     
   • Ancestral Legacy
     
   • Attributes
     
   • Ultimatums
     
   • Reaper Runes
     
   • Legendary Effects

If you haven't, I suggest you read our previous Slormite Chronicles #36 and #37 in which we talk about some of the Balance changes that are coming. Here are a few more, that I believe we didn't mention:

In the Legendary Drops Category:

• The Chance to drop Legendary Equipment on Battlefield Bosses has been increased by 100%.
  
• Breaches from Battlefield Expeditions now have a chance to drop Legendary Items.

In the Blacksmith Costs Category:

• Locking a Stat:
  • Now costs from 3 → 1 Slormeline of the relevant Rarity.
• Unlocking a Stat:
  • Now costs from 9 → 1 Slormeline of the relevant Rarity.
    
  • Now costs a fixed amount of 500 Goldus (instead of 47 787 on a Level 80. Epic Stat).
• Epic Stat : Cost has been reduced by about 65% (from 9 557 → 3 186 on a Level 80 Epic Stat).
  
• Epic Score : Cost has been reduced by about 65% (from 4 876 → 1 625 on a Level 80 Epic Stat).

Enough with teasers. The entire Patch Notes is coming next week.

[h2]What's next?[/h2]
Translating The Slormancer
Once the Balance Update is live and well, we will have a couple more things to work on to get to the final 1.0 Release. The first one will be to work on translating The Slormancer.

With dialogues, Skills, Slorm Reapers and quite a lot of other things, The Slormancer is currently about 60 000 words long which is getting quite substantial, and we will not be able to afford translating the game to every language. We will most likely get a professional translation for the largest languages and go for a mix of community / AI translation for the smaller ones. No matter what we choose to do, it is now on top of our to-do list.

The Warlords Update
We will simultaneously start working on the very last content update called The Warlords Update which will include the end of the Story, a new Endgame mode, the last part of the Trials and quite a few more Legendary Items.


So everything is coming along. The Balance Update took us a bit more than anticipated but we believe it's for the best. It is actually much bigger than we expected but also much more thorough than what we originally shot for, which is good.

This is a pretty short Chronicles as I've put everything I had to say in the Patch Notes. The rest of the reading is coming soon.

So that's about it!
Cheers!

Hello everyone!

Since the past couple of months, we've been working on a pretty large Balance Update. We've made some great progress but there are still quite a bit of things that we want to change. If you haven't, I suggest you read our previous Slormite Chronicles as I'm going to expand on some of the points that were discussed there.

With this update, our goal is to balance Combat but also Player's Experience to better fit our vision for the game, to modernize some of the mechanics and to work on the most criticized aspects of The Slormancer.

The Patch Notes is getting larger and larger everyday and is substantially bigger than anticipated. We won't be able to cover every entry in our Slormite Chronicles but I'll try to talk about some of the most important points that were not mentioned in our previous one.


[h2]Slorm Reapers[/h2]
Slorm Reaper Mastery
Regarding new player's experience, one of the most important issues that we've had to deal with is that getting a Slorm Reaper during leveling is often very underwhelming because of the damage difference between the one you have equipped and the one you just got. It just sets you back to equip it no matter how exciting its new effect is.

The easy solution would be to drop Slorm Reapers at a relevant Level like dropping a Level 25 Slorm Reaper when you are at Level 25 and although we've considered this option, this is something that doesn't feel right. We feel like Slorm Reapers would lose some meaning in the process, and a bit of their identity.

We believe that a Slorm Reaper should always start at Level 1. So here's what we did:
We've added a Slorm Reaper Mastery system in The Slormancer that levels up to Level 100 as you level up Slorm Reapers. Slorm Reaper Mastery increases the Reaper Damage of your Slorm Reaper as if it was at the level of your Slorm Reaper Mastery.

Basically, if you equip a Level 1 Slorm Reaper, with a Slorm Reaper Mastery of 75, your newly equipped Slorm Reaper will have its Reaper Damage set to its Level 75 value.

In the following example, my Sword of the Unkillable Berzerker is at Level 1, yet it already deals substantial Damage because my Slorm Reaper Mastery is at Level 100 so I will be able to equip it and level it up on the fly. As I level up, its effect scaling on Reaper Level will increase but most Slorm Reapers have enough non-scaling effects to be immediately viable with the addition of Slorm Reaper Mastery.



I believe that it will be fairly easy and natural and players won't even have to notice its existence.

The Slorm Reaper Mastery will level up about 20% slower than a Slorm Reaper so by the time you reach Level 15 with your first Slorm Reaper, your Slorm Reaper Mastery will be about Level 12.

Now, leveling up Slorm Reapers only level their effects scaling on Reaper Level, but it also does something new, which brings me to my next point.

Primordial Slorm Reapers
Primordial Slorm Reapers will no longer be found whenever you reach 42 000 Victims. This process was a bit too tedious and the path of least resistance to reach it was definitely not the most fun.

We've decided to make Primordial Slorm Reapers more accessible because they are a core part of the experience we want to offer with The Slormancer. With this update, reaching Level 100 with a Slorm Reaper will immediately unlock its Primordial Form.

It feels like a much more natural goal to reach that doesn't require the player to chain the notorious "Temppopotamus' Bastion Runs".

Slorm Reapers and Primordial Slorm Reapers
Another VERY important change we're making to Slorm Reapers is that their Primordial Form is no longer considered as a new weapon. It is now considered as the other face as the same weapon.

What this means is that a Slorm Reaper and its Primordial Form now share their Experience. So as soon as you unlock a Primordial Slorm Reaper, it will be at Level 100 (by default) and all its previous Evolutions will be immediately unlocked aswell.

After some careful thinking, we believe that there is absolutely no good justification to force the player to Level a Slorm Reaper that he already leveled back up to Level 100, even though it is slightly different. The Primordial Form should feel like one of the greatest rewards the game has to offer, not like a downgrade or a punishment.

As for the Slorm Reaper Affinity, instead of reducing the Victim Cap required to get a Primordial Slorm Reaper, it will now reduce the Level required down to Level 70.

With all those changes, we've decided to increase by about 100% the Experience required to reach Level 100 with a Slorm Reaper. And given the shape of our experience curve, getting a Slorm Reaper to Level 100 today will result in a Level 80 with our upcoming update.

That being said, even though we are changing the experience curve, the Level of your Slorm Reapers will not be lowered by this change and will be adjusted to remain the same. So if you want to get all those sweets Slorm Reapers to Level 100 before the change, now is a good time to do so. :)

[h2]Skill Masteries[/h2]
Skill Mastery is one of our most old-school mechanics I believe. The initial idea was to offer some form of "light reroll". Since the game doesn't offer / encourage class rerolls, we felt that Class Skills could offer that "start from scratch with a different build" feeling that you get when starting a new character on another ARPG. Clearly, this was not properly implemented because I believe no one ever got that feeling from our Mastery system.

We've made a few minor changes during Early Access but it was never enough to fix how tedious it was to gain Mastery. It always ended up in being a chore, or being afk-farmed. Hopefully, the following changes will create a better experience:
Masteries will now be based on Kills instead of Casts and all equipped Skill will now gain the same amount of Mastery (so you no longer need to cast Skills you don’t want to cast in a given situation just for the sake of gaining Mastery) and the time to reach Mastery 10 (the last tier of Class Skills) has been reduced.

On top of that, Wrath Levels will now grant Mastery Gains similar to Experience (up to 150%).

And finally, whenever you unlock a new Class Skill, say, Orb of the Arcane Master, at Level 24, some of its Upgrades will already be immediately available so that the Skill is immediately relevant to you. In the case of Orb of the Arcane Master, since it is the last Skill unlocked by the Mischievous Mage, it will already have its first 2 Tiers of Upgrades unlocked, thus needing to reach Mastery 7 to have all of its Upgrades available instead of Mastery 10 for say, Arcane Missile, that is unlocked at Level 1.



[h2]Skills and Refunds[/h2]
We really want The Slormancer to offer easy options to change builds and while our goal was for players to max out all of its Skills and Upgrades so that he could later easily switch his build around, we had to acknowledge that it was not user friendly for new players, and it did not encourage trying out the various unlocked Upgrades at all. And although there is a Refund option allowing to your respec while leveling, it comes with a 10% Cost in Slorm.

So we decided to fully embrace what we wanted and give much easier options for everyone, especially for new players. With this Update, you will now be able to Rank Up or Rank Down an Upgrade directly from the menu with no additional Cost (and get back 100% of your Slorm when Ranking Down). The Refund from Ormos and Oleros will also have no cost and grant you 100% of your Slorm aswell.

This will not make much of a difference if you want to Max out everything, but it should drastically open up your options while leveling, and encourage experimentation because it no longer comes with a cost.



And as you may have noticed, we've made a few changes to the UI. You can now directly click on your Skill bar to equip a Skill.

[h2]Wrath Levels[/h2]
When we first designed Wrath Levels and decided to grant +20 000% Max Life to enemies, it was not intended to be reached. It was an absurdly high value that gave a really hard goal for seasoned players. This was based on some internal testings we've made before the release in Early Access.

What's weird with the current state of Wrath 10 is that it feels too high for us a developers, yet it feels easy (and almost too low) for players. And since it is the Wrath Level that offers the most rewards, it is also the one that everyone aims for.

We would like to slowly change this. First, with this Balance pass, and if we manage to properly remove all the broken or exploitable mechanics, we should get to a healthy state, where Wrath 10 is no longer easily achievable.

With this Update, we will introduce something new for seasoned players called "Wrath X Plus", which will allow players to increase the difficulty even more.

On Battlefield Expeditions only (for now), you will be able to increase the Wrath X Plus difficulty, up to 100. Each level will increase the Wrath 10 Multipliers by 20%. However, the rewards will remain the same. This is just a way to measure how far a build can go, but no longer something that is required to farm in an optimal way.



Hopefully, this is a fun new option for experienced players but ultimately, it will help us adjust the various Wrath Levels from 0 to 10 and the overall experience of the game.

"Wrath X Plus" will allow us to eventually reduce the Wrath 10 multipliers without frustrating players that were already crushing this content, as they will have a harder content to look for.

For now, no changes are coming regarding Wrath 0 to 10. We will add "Wrath X Plus" then carefully observe.

[h2]Bonus Point: Storage[/h2]
Since it has been heaviliy requested, we've added a few additional Storage Stashes. And regarding Storage, your Storage Chest and Legendary Chest will now automatically spawn next to you in The Great Forge when completing a run.



[h2]Class Skills[/h2]
Classes were the very first layer of customization that was added to The Slormancer, probably 6 years ago. And it does feel old and clunky compared to our latest additions. This is what we are currently working on and this is taking longer than anticipated because we really feel like there are a lot of things that needs to be worked on.

I'm not talking about balance, but "basic playability" I think would be appropriate term. Some Skills are barely playable. They are either too slow, or way too uncomfortable to use. As for Upgrades, it often feels like there is one clear option and no meaningful choice to be made.

That's why we're doing our best to get everything to a"playable" state.

[h2]Balance Patch: Release Plan[/h2]
For the Balance Update, instead of uploading the Update once it is ready, we will instead do a couple of intermediate steps prior to the release:

1. Uploading the Patch Notes: We will start by uploading the Patch Notes once it is ready so that we can discuss it with the community and make sure that we're not breaking something up or missing out on something else, at least on paper.
   
2. Experimental Branch: Exceptionally, we will upload the Balance Update on the Experimental Branch for at least a couple of weeks, to be sure that everything is properly working and that, again, we're not actually breaking something up or actually missing out on something else.
   
3. Actual Release: Once the Update has been validated by the community and properly tested, it will move on to the Live branch.
   

That's about it!
There's no release date for now but we'll get there eventually (can I be more vague, I'm not sure...)

Cheers!

Hello Everyone!

Since the Encyclopedia Update that introduced the Codex, Achievements and Performance Updates, we've been working on the 0.9 Update, called the "Balance Update".

This update will introduce a LOT of fixes, changes, and balance to The Slormancer to get it ready for the last content Updates and for the 1.0 release. We're getting close!

This Balance Update is pretty much a community update since it involves making changes to all the points raised by the community over the last three years that we felt were relevant. That's a lot of things to rework and sort out but balance has been neglected for most of our Early Access so it is now time to address it.

One giant trap at this stage of development would be to try to rework too many points and/or too deeply. This is something we did before early access and it took us nearly a year. Therefore, we need to sort out what needs to be reworked and what, despite being imperfect, is part of the charm of the game. After all, we have a game that feels solid in many aspects but can seem a bit rough around the edges in others.

Below, I'll list all the changes that you can expect from the Balance Update.
They are divided in two major categories: Balancing the Experience and Balancing Combat.

[h2]Balancing the Experience[/h2]
The Slormancer can be a tedious game. This is something that we've had to ackowledge to move forward. Most mechanics and features come with a downside that can heavily harm the fun that was initially intended.
Here are a couple of examples, but if you've played the game, I'm sure that you've experienced the feeling:

• Whenever a players loots a Slorm Reaper (say, its first, around Level 10), he should be nothing but super excited to discover and equip its new weapon however, it is unplayable because of the level difference with its current Slorm Reaper.
  
• Whenever a player finally unlocks its first Primordial Slorm Reaper, after sweating on that 40k+ victims, he should be thrilled, yet it is unusable for at least another couple of hours or so of grind to get it back to a relevant level.
  
• Whenever a player unlock its first NPCs, he should be super excited to find out about all the fancy features that the game is made of, but no, he first has to pay a substantial amount of Goldus to unlock these features.
  

I could go on about other mechanics that work in a similar way where we ended up turning an experience that should be full of fun into something tedious and ultimately, disappointing.

We've always wanted for The Slormancer to be a game where you can easily create and experience new builds on the fly, yet somehow it sometimes feels like the game is actively preventing you to.

I'm not going to go into details about how we're about to change what has been detailed above just because everything is still subject to change but these issues will no longer exist. We're moving back and forth with our solutions because although some of the issues may seem easy to resolve, or have been resolved in a certain way by other games, the solution has to fit the greater picture, and that includes all of our upcoming changes.

We're also going to remove or change mechanics that can be bypassed by cheesing the game. You can expect a complete rework of Masteries that will no longer require you to afk-farm and / or mind-numbingly afk-cast Skills to get Mastery points. Same goes for the Temppopotamus' Bastion runs to get those Primordial Slorm Reapers, though it is important to mention that we are not going to prevent these runs, but simply change the prerequisite to get a Primordial Slorm Reaper to something more fun and natural.

Basically, we know that we have really exciting features but we now need to get rid of the unnecessary tediousness that breaks the fun for some players.

Generally speaking, the time to access to horizontal features such as new Slorm Reapers, new Legendary Items, new Class Upgrades and Passives, will be reduced and the content easier to access.

[h2]Balancing Combat[/h2]
There's a lot of things to say about Combat but I'll try to keep it short and on point.

[h3]Reworks[/h3]
There are a few major reworks that are coming up that will impact all classes and how the game is played:

• Attack Speed: We're going to rename the current Attack Speed stat to what it is: Cooldown Reduction. Then we're going to add a proper Attack Speed stat to the game that will be used to reduce the animation time of the Skills you cast.
  
  This Attack Speed stat will be found on Equipment and on the various layers of the game.
  
  
• Cooldown Reduction: Currently, Cooldown Reduction (the current Attack Speed) is a necessary stat for every build because it is a quick and efficient way to increase your overall DPS and to add comfort and ease of use.
  
  We are first going to drastically reduce the need for Cooldown Reduction by reducing the Cooldown of most Class Skills (more on that below).
  
  But we are also going to reduce the Cooldown Reduction that can be found in the various layers of the game. And most importantly reduce its presence on Equipment. With the proper Equipment, you can reach +66% Cooldown Reduction (Attack Speed) on a single stat roll which is too damn high!
  
  
• Class Skills and Ancestral Legacy Skills: As I've mentioned above, we will greatly reduce the Cooldown Time of most Class Skills so that they are much more comfortable to use without the need to reduce their Cooldown.
  
  This will also lead in more contrasted Cooldowns as we, with a proper Attack Speed, currently either have 0.1 second Cooldown Time on Primary / Secondary Skills and 1 second Cooldown Time on greater Ancestral Skills that have a 60-second base Cooldown Time.
  
  
• Skill / Elemental Damage Ratios: Currently, The Slormancer doesn't encourage damage hybridation even though this was the intended behavior. You either build Elemental Damage through conversions and / or by playing the Mage or you simply don't. The Mighty Knight lacks the proper options to use Elemental Damage whereas The Mischievous Mage is strongly encouraged to build around it because both the Ancestral Legacy and his Class Kit benefit from it.
  
  The first thing that we need to change to encourage hybridation is to grant Elemental Damage to everyone, through leveling, but also through the Ancestral Legacy Tree.
  
  We are introducing a new mechanic to the Ancestral Legacy: You will now gain Elemental Damage for every Upgrade you've purchased on the Ancestral Legacy Tree, whether it is equipped or not. This both acts as a way to grant Elemental Damage to everyone but also as a Slorm Sink that is, even though limited, quite large.
  
  As for The Mischievous Mage, the Skill / Elemental Damage ratios will be changed for something more similar to the other classes. He will keep Elemental Damage ratios on Skills because we like the asymmetry that it creates. They will simply be reduced so that, as expected, Skills deal Skill Damage and Elemental Effects deal Elemental Damage.
  
  
• Conversions: A longstanding issue we've had is how we manage the numbers coming from synergies / conversions. An issue called "double dipping", because a Flat Value gained from a Synergy is added to the stat before Percent Increases and Multipliers. So if you keep converting that value, say from Evasion to Armor to Mana to Life, then that value is inheriting the Percent Increases and Multipliers of every conversion that it goes through.
  By building it properly, you can quickly reach gigantic numbers that were not intended.
  
  We're basically going to remove the double dipping. With the 0.9 Update, conversions will now be added on top of the final value. So instead of having ((Added Flat + Conversion)
• Percent
• Multiplier) for each stat, it will become (Added Flat
• Percent
• Multiplier) + Conversion.
  
  This feels like the healthier option even though we might lose some of the fun there is in finding these chains.
  

[h3]Balance[/h3]
Besides the larger reworks, we are also adjusting and fine tuning every layer that's available in The Slormancer. As I've mentioned above, it would be a trap to rework every Skill, Reaper or Legendary that is in the game so we are prioritizing the things that need to be changed and / or deeply reworked and the things that only need a bit of fine tuning.

But we are going through everything. And everything includes:

• Equipment and Stat Rolls
  
• Attributes
  
• Class Skills, Upgrades, Specialisations and Mechanics
  
• Slorm Reapers
  
• Ancestral Legacy
  
• Legendary Effects
  
• Ultimatums
  
• Reaper Runes
  
• Elite Affixes & Cataclysms
  
• The Great Forge Rewards
  

Given the cheer amount of changes that is coming up, I'm writing the Patch Notes as I go, and boy, it is going to be a long one.

That's about it for today!
We're making good progress but it is not yet possible to give a release date for the 0.9 Update.

Stay tuned.
Cheers!

Hello!
Don’t mind me, I’m just fixing a few minor bugs.

• This issue with the various Passives and Upgrades stacking up everytime you come back to the Village or Load your Save has been resolved.
  
• The following Achievements should now work properly:
  • Ancient Slorm Siphoner
    
  • Legendary Object Collection
    
• Legion, Reaper of Unity should now target properly and display the correct sprites.
  

Cheers!

Hello everyone!

The Encyclopedia Update (v.0.8.0) is now available!

[h2]Codex[/h2]

• A Codex has been added to the game and should answer the most frequently asked questions regarding most mechanics.
  
• Stats Tooltips have been added, displaying current value and valuable informations to all the stats that may appear on Skills or Upgrades.
  

If you feel like an entry is missing an important information, please let us know. After working on the game for so long, we lost track of what is easy to understand and what is not.

[h2]Achievements[/h2]

• A little over 200 Achievements have been added to The Slormancer.
  
• Steam Achievements will be added later (for the 1.0 release).
  

There are quite a few values that were not tracked before adding Achievements so there are a few Achievements that will be starting at 0.

[h2]Profile Menu[/h2]

• The Profile Menu has been reworked to look more modern and better reflect the actual content of the game.
  

[h2]Click to Move[/h2]

• Click to Move has been reworked and should feel more natural to use.
  
• The Click to Move key can now be rebind.
  
• Aiming should be more precise and now come with visual feedback.
  

[h2]Performance[/h2]
We've done numerous changes that should drastically improve the performances of the game. That being said, new issues might arise from all these changes (basically, we might have broken something).
If so, please let us know.

And since we've made changes to how the game compiles and executes, there is a small possibility that it just no longer works on your setup. If so, let us know as soon as possible so we'll be able to work things out.

We've done a great deal of changes yet there are some things remaining that may cause the game to slow down, if you happen to find one, please let me know (such as when equipping this X Legendary Item or that Y Upgrade).

Even though everything should work much faster, the game can still be quite demanding for the more modest configs. On your side, you can disable Damage Numbers and / or Lifebars, both of these can take a toll on performance when many enemies are being displayed. Enabling the "Low FX" option from the Settings menu also helps a lot.

[h2]Bugs[/h2]
Slorm Reaper

• Fixed a crash with Primordial Reaper of Time and Space.
  
• Changed the lore of Reaper of the Spider Nest to match its Reapersmith.
  
• Relevant Projectiles should now properly rebound when hitting the edges of the screen when Reaper of the Spider Nest is equipped.
  
• Changed the lore of Reaper of Support to match its Reapersmith.
  
• In The Great Forge, Imps should no longer be locked outside the Area when using Slasha.
  

Various

• Using "Sort Inventory" should no longer mess with Loadouts.
  
• Blazing Fireball now add the correct amount of stacks.
  
• Opening Random Boxes with Jemma with a Controller should no longer lock you out of the menu under specific circumstances.
  
• In The Great Forge, the "War Chest Quantity is equal to War Chest Quality" reward should now work properly.
  
• You should no longer be able to use an exploit allowing you to unlock all Slorm Reapers through the campaign.
  
• Imps should now behave properly when Slowed or Chilled.
  

That's about it for now!
Cheers!