The Slormancer News

Hello everyone!

This is hopefully the last patch regarding performance and bugs for The Great Forge. That does not mean I don't have lots of bugs to fix and improvements to make, but at some point we have to move on to new content before coming back to bugs.


Thanks to The Great Forge and from your feedback, I've managed to find a number of effects that were severely impacting performance. If you've been using the following skills or effects, you probably had performance issues inside The Great Forge (and in high-density areas in the rest of the game) that should now be gone:
- Neriya's Shield and any effect applying Chill to enemies.
- Arcane Clones casting Ray of Obliteration
- Vindictive Slam.

As for Vindictive Slam and Ray of Obliteration, we've had to make a couple of mechanical changes to improve performance aswell, which are listed below.


Today is not about balance, but only about fixing bugs and improving performance. But on top of making performance improvements on the following skills, it was also necessary to tone them down to limit the huge number of collisions they may have at higher Wrath Levels with some Builds.

Ray of Obliteration
- The range of Ray of Obliteration cast by Arcane Clones has been reduced by about 25%.

Vindictive Slam
- Vindictive Slam can no longer be triggered on enemies already being targetted by a Vindictive Slam Hammer.
- There is now a small delay between Vindictive Slams so that multiple Vindictive Slams do not fall at the same time.
The main issue with Vindictive Slam is the amount of Hammers landing which is clearly too high, despite the change listed above. We will figure out a way to balance it, but later.
However, the main issue performance-wise was that when multiple Vindictive Slams were triggered during the same frame, they would all land and deal AoE damage at the exact same frame as well, freezing the game for a short time. Which should no longer occur.
That being said, and until we've made proper balance changes, low-end configurations will probably still struggle to run the build.

The Great Forge
- War Chest Quantity is now properly additive with Goldus and Slorm Quantity instead of being multiplicative. The correct values were displayed on the War Chest UI but incorrectly calculated at the moment of looting, resulting in large differences between both values.
- You now need to unlock The Slorm Temple to unlock The Great Forge.
- A Single Obelisk should no longer prevent you from opening your War Chest.
- Cataclysm Tooltips should no longer display wrong Breach informations.
- The Curse based on Reapersmith Spirit should now properly work.
- The Cataclysm "Gravity" should now be be properly working in The Great Forge.
- The Cataclysm "To Each His Own" should now be properly working in The Great Forge.
- The Cataclysm "Tenacious" should no longer always grant 100% Tenacity regardless of its rarity.

Reaper Runes
- There were rounding issues with Activation Runes and they should now display their proper Activation Condition.

The Mighty Knight
- Fast Rebound can no longer be upgraded above its Max Upgrade rank.
- Deflect and other visual FXs should now remain centered when Whirlwind is active.

The Fierce Huntress
- Traps + Gravity Belt should no longer stop heavier enemies from moving inside The Great Forge.
- Fist of the Wild + Volatile Hurricane should now spread properly on enemies out of the screen.

The Mischievous Mage
- Time-Lock should no longer interrupt Bosses.
- Arcane Clones will now properly stop casting when the player dies.
- Ray of Obliteration should now properly gain Mastery over time when cast by Clones.

Slorm Reapers
- Reaper of Vindictive Slam now displays the proper Per Level upgrades.
- Damages from Vindictive Slam is now properly affected by Slorm Reaper Affinity (they were in the tooltip, not ingame).
- Reaper of the Temple Keeper: The Mini-Keeper should now properly follow your orders, including inside The Slorm Temple.
- Reaper of Necromancy / Reaper of Temple Keeper: you should no longer have to resummon minions everytime you start a new floor.
- Fate-Crusher no longer benefit from Affinity on your Equipment.
- Fate-Crusher: Fulgurorn's Dedication now increases the Affinity Level instead of Reaper Level.
- Fate-Crusher: Primordial Malediction should now be properly working.

Story
- Act 3 - Mission 9: Alarin - School Seals on the ground should no longer be randomly destroyed.
- Act 3 - Mission 4: School Emblem should now be properly dropping everytime you complete the Mission.

Various
- Fixed a couple of crashes.

That's about it!

Hello everyone!


It's been a chaotic release for us, due to various bugs, performance issues and balance problems.
We've already taken care of some of it and I do still have quite a list of bugs ahead but I can only fix them one at a time. That being said, we have one (hopefully) final patch regarding The Great Forge coming in the next few days. It will fix Performance issues for the most intensive builds such as Ray of Obliteration + Arcane Clones or any build using Vindictive Slam, along with the vast majority of bugs and issues regarding Runes.

On a positive note, we're pretty happy with The Great Forge. And from what we've seen from our Discord, players seem to be having fun building massive War Chests, which is nice.

Once the final Great Forge patch has been released, we will be able to move on to new horizons.


Now feels like a good time to release the new Roadmap. Nothing has been added or removed from the old one, this is basically us taking a fresh start in our Early Access.

With this new Roadmap also comes the intention of deploying Updates much more often, even if it means releasing less content at a time.

I have to say that working for 5 months on the last update has been pretty hard. Despite the amount of content that was added, we've made almost no progress on the roadmap itself and it feels bad.
So right now, we want to go for the exact opposite: Making smaller yet impactful updates, and ticking things off the Roadmap.

And after so much time working on the same thing, we're super excited to work on new content.

Now Behold!



This new Milestones / Features gives us a bit more freedom regarding what we add and when we add it. The Milestones row is what we plan to follow, meaning that the next update is "The Luxuriant Update I", while the Features row is what we plan to add at any given point in-between updates.

We are also done with adding new layers of customization or new mechanics for a while. Our goal is to focus on what we currently have and work on it. This means reworking what needs to be reworked and grow on existing layers such as adding Environments, Enemies, Slorm Reapers, Ancestral Skills and Legendary Items.

We actually plan on finishing all these layers before even considering adding something entirely new. As for the last 2 endgame modes mentioned in the Road Map, both are based on existing mechanics that simply needs to be polished and fleshed out.

In the near future, for the next 5 to 6 months, it should all be about building content for what we already have. This usually requires very little brainstorm or tests, which was the most time-consuming thing for our Slorm Temple and Great Forge updates.


Half our team (so 1 person) is already working full time on the new update, while I'm still here fixing bugs, writing devlogs and stuff. And while we have nothing absolutely new to offer, here are a few (fairly old) screenshots of what's coming: The Luxurious Gardens.




That's about it for now!
Cheers!

Hello everyone!

Here's the list of changes that were made over the yesterday's and today's patches.

We've been monitoring what was achievable in The Great Forge and we've decided to make a first round of changes as some interractions with Greater Rewards were out of control.

• The chance to get Greater Rewards inside The Great Forge diminishes every time you pick a Greater Reward. The Greater Reward from Well-Deserved Rest remains guaranteed.
  
• You can no longer get an Obelisk as a Challenge Choice if you already have that same Obelisk active, Allied or Hostile.
  
• The Chance to have Obelisks as Challenge Choices has been reduced by 30%.
  
• War Chest Quality and War Chest Quantity base rates have been halved.
  
• Rewards with a "Rest of the Run" duration have been increased by +100%.
  
• Rewards for "Attrition Battle" have been increased by 300%.
  
• The Greater Reward: "You immediately gain +15% Slorm Quantity to your War Chest for every Reapersmith Spirit inside your War Chest." now reads "You immediately add +10 Slorm to your War Chest for every Reapersmith Spirit inside your War Chest."
  
• The Greater Reward: "For the rest of the Expedition, you add +1 of a random type of Reapersmith Spirit to your War Chest everytime you kill an enemy." now reads "For the rest of the Expedition, you have 35% Chance to add +1 of a random type of Reapersmith Spirit to your War Chest everytime you kill an enemy." and is no longer affected by Wrath Rewards Multiplier since Wrath Level already increases the number of enemies per Wave.
  
• The Obelisk Reward that adds +4% War Chest Quality every Wave now adds 2% instead.
  
• The Obelisk Reward that adds +2% Equipment Quality every Wave now adds 4% instead.
  
• Curse based on your Goldus now reads "Enemies have +X% Max Life. Max Life is equal to your current Goldus Quantity."
  

• The War Chest now drops Loot much faster.
  
• Goldus and Fragments from Items looted by the War Chest that are being filtered and converted are now immediately added to your Inventory instead of being looted.
  
• The War Chest can no longer be opened while in Combat.
  
• Obelisks are no longer affected by Cataclysms.
  

• Reaper of Necromancy should now properly grant the correct amount of Life to your Squire.
  
• Enhancement Rune of Hagan and Enhancement Rune of Beigarth should now properly work.
  
• Reaper Effect should now properly be increased by your Slorm Reaper Affinity.
  
• The Greater Reward: "The total of every loot inside your War Chest is immediately increased by your current War Chest Quality." now properly only increases flat values, and not % Quality or Quantity.
  

• Multiplie Memory Leaks and FPS-related issues were found and fixed. This includes issues with Rain of Arrows and various Cataclysms such as Floor is Lava or Replicant. Various parts were changed along the way that should result in FPS improvements everywhere in the game.
  
• The "Low FX" setting hides new resource-heavy effects that were previously ignored.
  

About Performance:
Due to the high density of enemies inside The Great Forge, lag is currently to be expected in high Wrath Levels. Here are some changes in your Gameplay Settings that you can make to improve your experience:

- Hide Gathered Slorm: Disabled
- Display Enemy Life Bar: Never
- Disable Hero Damage: Never
- Display Combo Meter: Never
- Display Goldus/XP/Mana/Life/State Texts: Disabled
- Display Debuff Icons: Disabled
- In Settings: Low FX: Enabled

This should reduce the lag you may experience.



That's about it for today.
We'll have another round of fixes next week, focusing on non-gamebreaking and again, on performance.

May your War Chest be filled with shiny Legendaries!
Cheers!

Hello everyone!

This patch is mostly about fixing the biggest Performance issues occuring inside The Great Forge.
There are a couple of things that were fixed along the way such as Slorm Reaper Affinity and Enhancement Runes not working.

Once I've dealt with the most important issues, I'll upload anohter patch and write a proper Patch Notes listing all the changes.
Tomorrow most likely.

I hope you're all having a good time!
Cheers!

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!