The Slormancer News

Hello everyone!

So first thing first, we took a bit of a break from development and enjoyed some holidays in the last couple of weeks. So we didn't make enough progress to give a release window for the next big update.
(But please keep reading, I gave this Chronicle much love
That being said, this break was much needed and allowed us to take a step back from development and look at the game, the comments and the reviews we got from a fresh perspective.

[h2]Addressing Reviews[/h2]
The most important issue we get on Steam and Discord is how grindy the game is and how repetitive and boring it quickly becomes.

I believe we've already mentioned in another Slormite Chronicle that addressing the repetitiveness was one of our top priorities during Early Access. But coming back from our break, and after reading the comments we got from the endgame mode we've recently introduced, we realized that we did the opposite.

The Slorm Temple is pretty much the quintessence of a grindy and repetitive content. We know we could have done a MUCH better job so we're not happy about that.
We were probably too impatient to deliver additional content and we did not take the time to think it through. It turns out The Slorm Temple is not that fun.
But that's about to change (more about it down below).

As for the rest of the content, our goal is to slowly introduce enough mechanics, enemies and environments so that the game is enjoyable for a much greater amount of time.

The amount of grind needed to unlock new things such as Masteries, Skills, Primordial Reapers or even Levels is also on the to-do list of things we want to adjust.

We also saw a couple of reviews and comments talking about the development being slow and/or focusing on the wrong things (either balance or content that's not the story).
We pretty much agree to some extent. We're slowly learning that developing a game during an Early Access is quite different than developing an unpublished game on our own. We definitely could have done a better job and could have prioritized better.
I guess we're still trying to find the correct pace of our Early Access.

But don't give up! We're still determined to make one pretty damn fine RPG with The Slormancer.


[h2]The Slorm Temple[/h2]
As mentioned above, we are not happy with The Slorm Temple and we are going to introduce some major changes that are currently being worked on. This includes more unique encounters, Traps and Events inside the Temple, a Boss, a soft ending and valuable UNIQUE things to collect, giving the player good reasons to get into the Temple.

The Slorm Temple will no longer be something you start over from Floor 1 when you want to spend Pure Slorm: You will be able to purchase upgrades (and other fancy things) from Olorin whenever you want, in the village or directly inside the Temple. Your progression in The Slorm Temple will also be permanent (no need to start over).

The progress you've made so far in the Temple will still be relevant and Pure Slorm spent will be refunded.

[h2]What about Act II?[/h2]
We have no release window for that yet. We definitely don't want to rush anything given how things went with The Slorm Temple and we want to make sure that the experience we offer lays the foundations of something solid and fun for the rest of the development.


[h2]Quality of Life[/h2]
Oh! And we have Quality of Life changes on the way for the next update. These were all suggestions from our Discord members.

We're introducing a Loot FIlter of our own in The Slormancer. Its purpose is to declutter the screen AND prevent a decent amount of trips to Jemma and/or Friedrich since filtered items can be immediately transformed into either Fragments or Gold.



Also, there are a couple of changes to the Inventory.
First, there's an additional Tab. It is not yet available but we plan to add the very-requested "Materials Tab" very soon. Second, you will notice "Filter" buttons: Level, Reinforcement, Extras and Purity.

These will allow you to quickly display informations directly on your items so you can quickly find what you're looking for.

Last but not least, you will have the ability to easily throw an item and to easily split Slormites and Fragments into stacks of various sizes. There are other changes coming but these were the "cool" ones.

That's about it for now.
Thanks for reading this and following the development of the game!

See you next time!

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!