The Slormancer News

Hello everyone!
It's that day of the month!

[h2]The Balance Update[/h2]
So, as you may have read in previous Slormite Chronicles, we've been monitoring The Balance Update (0.9), currently available on the Experimental Branch, that introduced a LOT of changes (Read the Patch Notes here). Since its release, we've made at least a couple of rounds of changes that can be found under the Changelog part.

We're pretty happy with how everything is turning out and are almost done with Balance changes (at least for this update, of course). This means that The Balance Update will soon hit the Live Branch and will be available to everyone.

If you want to read more about The Balance Update, check out:
Slormite Chronicles #38 Slormite Chronicles #39

And of course: The Patch Notes

I've said this before, but if you want to try the update of The Experimental Branch, it will copy your progress from the Live Branch and you will later be able to keep playing on that save as soon as the Balance Update hits the Live Branch, so you can try it out without losing your progress at any point.

[h2]The Final Update[/h2]
The Final Update, as found in the Road Map, will include:

• A new endgame mode: The Warlords.
  
• The end of the Story.
  
  • Adam Nostrus' Trials Part III.
    
  • The Final Boss.
• About 120 Legendary Effects (to get to 200).
  
• A Level Cap increased to 100.
  

This Update should take us about 2 to 3 months, however this is the update that puts an end to Early Acces and that marks the release of The Slormancer in 1.0. This means that we will have quite a bunch of stuff to do before releasing this update, and the game.

This also includes translating The Slormancer in various languages but more importantly, this includes a big marketing campaign to be sure that we make as much noise as possible when we release the game. This as well, should take a couple of months.

This will be a crucial moment for The Slormancer so we will have to be very careful with how we handle the release and pick a good release window.
We have a release date in mind but that's still too early to tell.

While preparing the release, we will also be moving The Final Update to a Closed Beta branch so that it can be thoroughly tested before going on the Live Branch.

[h2]Legendary Effects[/h2]
We've already started working on The Final Update and now have a complete list of 120 new Legendary Items, that now need to be properly implemented into the game.

Unfortunately, they are currently in a huge sheet so I have nothing to screenshoot and share.
Here's a quick teaser though: We've added Legendary Effects for each Class so that there is at least one Legendary Effect for each Mechanic / Skill and we've also added about 20 Legendary Effects regarding the Ancestral Legacy.

Now here's something new that we've had in mind for quite a while: We're adding a few Legendary Effects for Slorm Reapers. The idea is to boost some Slorm Reapers that need one or more extra effects to make them work.

[h2]Price Change[/h2]
Now that The Slormancer is almost in its final form, we believe that it is no longer correctly priced and we will increase its price by about 25%, altough we're still not quite sure about the final price yet.

We've had our share of Negative Reviews, and we've had feedback on about every single aspect of the game, yet I don't think we've ever seen a Negative Review regarding the price, which is a great. And despite this increase, we would love to keep it this way.

This change will occur in September after our next Slormite Chronicles.
This is only a first notification.

That being said, The Slormancer will be on sales as often as possible, including on its release week so if you haven't bought the game yet, do not feel rushed to buy it now.

That's about it for today!
Cheers!

Hello everyone!

As you may know, we've just published The Balance Update on the Experimental Branch of The Slormancer. It is the result of a couple of months of work on new player experience, balance and changes.

If you've missed the announcement, it's right here!
And if you've missed the Patch Notes, it's right there!

[h2]Balancing Balance[/h2]
Since we published the Patch Notes a few weeks ago, we've been monitoring feedback we got about it and already made a few changes and additions that can be found in the "Changelog" part of the Patch Notes. This includes a few suggestions from our Discord members such as:

• Adding a few Quality of Life changes to The Blacksmith.
  
• Adding new options for the Filter-o-Tron.
  
• Adding more options for Raw / Skill Damage.
  

Now that the update is live, we're still monitoring feedback and plan to make changes and adjustments before releasing the Update on the Live Branch. So please, give it a try and let us know what you think about it.

If you want to jump in The Slormancer, I encourage you to do so on the Experimental Branch, it is now stable enough and introduces many changes to New Player Experience that we would love to get feedback on. And you will be able to keep your save once this Update goes from the Experimental Branch to the Live Branch.

Here's my 100% not biased opinion:
I did a complete Playthrough from Level 1 to the end of Adam Nostrus' Trials right before publishing the Update, and everything felt really good, there is much less friction, everything tends to be unlocked at a much faster pace and it doesn't feel as grindy as it used to be.

And this is very important for us, as much as Endgame balance is. After all, most players tend to stop playing after completing the Story-part of any given game, or stop as soon as the game gets stale or repetitive, so we've made a lot of effort to smoothen the experience.

We may not be quite where we want to be regarding Endgame balance but I believe we got Early Game right, or at least, as right as it can be given the current state of the game and the time we have ahead of us.

On this, I'd like to add that we're at a point where the price for perfection is prohibitive. We're working with limited resources and we're not trying to build a competitive environment so as soon as most players feel that they can build whatever they set their mind to in a respectable timeframe, without feeling the need to build the current metabuild, then we will be happy.

We chose to build an ARPG because we love that genre but unlike most others in the market, we're not trying to build a Game As A Service that will last for a dozen of years. So if the game gets stale or if issues regarding balance or content start to arise after 200+ hours of gameplay, we believe that it is acceptable.

That being said, we will keep updating and balancing the game for a few years, just because we enjoy it.

[h2]What's next?[/h2]
We will keep working on Balance for the next month, while brainstorming and finalizing the content for the Final Update but since we've just released new content, we currently have nothing new to share. Once we get endgame balance in a good enough state, we will move the Update to the Live Branch.

And then... After 3+ years of Early Access and about 15+ Updates... We will move onto The Final Update.
It will introduce:

• A new endgame mode: The Warlords.
  
• The end of the Story.
  
  • Adam Nostrus' Trials Part III.
    
  • The Final Boss.
• About 120 Legendary Effects (to get to 200).
  
• A Level Cap increased to 100.
  

More on this Update in the next Slormite Chronicles.
Meanwhile, please try out The Balance Update in the Experimental Branch!

That's about it!
Cheers!

Hello everyone!

The Balance Update (v.0.9.0) is now available on the Experimental Branch!

[h2]Patch Notes[/h2]
The Patch Notes is available here on our website.

[h2]Experimental Branch[/h2]
The Balance Update adds a few new mechanics, balance, reworks and changes regarding New Player Experience and Endgame content so, as mentioned mentioned in previous Slormite Chronicles, we are releasing this Update on the Experimental Branch first.

Given the amount of changes, and despite our best effort to balance it, this update hasn't been playtested enough for it to be released on the Live Branch so we plan to monitor player's feedback and quickly adjust while the game is in the Experimental Branch until we (and you) are satisfied with the game.

You may leave your feedback here on Steam, on our Forums or right below this post, but the best way to interact and chat with us about specific issues you're having is on our Discord, so feel free to join in!

As for GoG users, unfortunately we do not plan on releasing an Experimental version there so you will have to wait a bit until The Balance Update goes live on both platforms.

[h2]About Balance[/h2]
We've made quite a lot of changes and I believe that it is safe to say that most builds will require at least a bit of adjustments to work properly. And if despite your best effort, you can no longer make your build work and that you feel that it is was unfairly nerfed, then open a topic or join our Discord and politely discuss it. The very goal of going to the Experimental Branch first is to keep adjusting and balancing after all.

[h2]How to play[/h2]
To get access to the Experimental Branch, right click on The Slormancer, then:
Properties -> Betas -> Beta Participation -> Experimental - Testing Branch.

Once you start The Slormancer, it will make a copy of your save so your progress will carry over to the Experimental Branch. A few changes on The Balance Update (0.9) are not compatible with the current 0.8.5 version of The Slormancer, so if you want to go back to the Live Branch, your progress from the Experimental Branch will NOT carry back to the Live Branch.

That being said, once The Balance Update moves from the Experimental Branch to the Live Branch, your save from the Experimental Branch will be elligible to be carried over.

Have fun!
Cheers!

Hello everyone!

Behold! The Patch Notes for The Balance Update (0.9) is here!

The Balance Update (0.9) itself is not out yet and will be available in a couple of weeks, once we're done with our internal testing and once we're happy with the Patch Notes below.

This is the first version and we'll be happy to read your feedback on it.
You can either react below this post or on our Discord.

The Patch Notes is too big to be posted here on Steam so it is hosted on our website.

[h2]>> Read the Patch Notes <<[/h2]




Or Navigate through the various categories:

• 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
  
  
• Bug Fixes
• Changelog

[h2]Changelog:[/h2]

• June 24 Update: The Patch Notes has been Updated!
  

Cheers!

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!